Kultida Woods, whose steerage and assist helped propel her son, the skilled golfer Tiger Woods, to turn out to be one in every of his sport’s most dominant athletes, died on Tuesday. She was 80.
In saying her demise, Mr. Woods wrote on social media: “She was my largest fan, biggest supporter, with out her none of my private achievements would have been potential.” He didn’t cite a trigger or say the place she died.
Ms. Woods was a frequent presence in her son’s public life, whether or not attending his tournaments or standing by his facet throughout a interval of scandal that took him away from the game. Mr. Woods spoke usually about his mom’s position in his profession.
“I didn’t do that alone,” he stated in a speech in 2024, accepting the Bob Jones Award from the USA Golf Affiliation. “I had the best rock that any little one might probably have: my mother.”
Ms. Woods was born in Thailand and met Tiger’s father there when he was on a army project. (The elder Mr. Woods died in 2006.)
Throughout his acceptance speech on the 2022 World Golf Corridor of Fame induction ceremony, Mr. Woods credited his mother and father with offering him an early begin within the sport he got here to dominate.
He stated that when he was 6 years previous, his mom took him to a golf course in Lengthy Seaside, Calif., and requested workers there: “Can my son play right here and follow somewhat bit?”
He recalled that when he was 8 years previous, she would drop him off on the entryway to the golf course and provides him 75 cents to purchase a sizzling canine and use the pay telephone to name when he was prepared for her to select him up.
Within the speech, Mr. Woods stated that when he was about 14 years previous, his household struggled to afford the prices of his golf tournaments. His voice broke as he recalled the sacrifices his mom made to make it work. Ms. Woods, within the viewers, smiled up at him.
Mr. Woods credited his father, Earl Woods, for uplifting his work ethic. However whereas he spoke usually of how supportive his mom was, Mr. Woods has additionally stated she was robust on him.
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” in 2006, Ms. Woods was requested whether or not she had skilled prejudice in the USA, and he or she stated sure, particularly when she took Tiger from a match to a rustic membership. “A few of them reject us,” she stated. “I stated, ‘Tiger, it’s their downside. It’s their ignorance.’”
“Be happy with who you’re,” she stated.
When Tiger was a toddler, Tida, as she was recognized, stated that she instructed him, “You’ll by no means break my fame, as a result of I’ll beat you,” in accordance with a San Diego Union-Tribune article in 2006. The article quoted him as saying she used to “beat the hell out of” him. “I’ve nonetheless acquired the handprints,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
In 2010, when Mr. Woods publicly apologized in entrance of nationwide information media for having an affair whereas he was married to Elin Nordegren, he stated his mom was among the many people who he had harm, and that he had strayed from the Buddhist teachings she had instilled in him at a younger age.
Ms. Woods embraced her son after he spoke. “I’m so proud to be his mother, interval,” she stated on the time. “As a human being, everybody has faults, makes missteps and learns from it.”
A New York Instances article through the troubled interval for Mr. Woods described Ms. Woods because the “matriarch, iron hand and non secular compass for her son.”
