Rise, fall and rise of Woods
- Published
Tiger Woods seemed destined for greatness from an early age and had a distinguished amateur career before playing in his first major at the 1995 Masters
Woods turned pro in 1996 and won his first major the following year when he became the youngest winner of the Masters with a 12-shot victory at Augusta, aged 21. He became world number one for the first time in June of that year
Woods won his second major at the 1999 US PGA Championship to begin a stretch of 264 weeks at the top of the rankings, ended by Vijay Singh in September 2004. During this period he started a remarkable sequence of major wins beginning with the 2000 US Open by a record 15 strokes at Pebble Beach
Victories in the Open at St Andrews and the US PGA at Valhalla followed, and when Woods won the 2001 Masters he held all four major titles at the same time, the so-called "Tiger Slam".
Woods endured a barren spell in 2003 and 2004 but the 2005 Masters opened the major floodgates again and he soon regained his world number one ranking. Defying knee pain - which turned out to be a broken leg and required eight months out of the game - Woods pulled off an astonishing victory in the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines for his 14th, and to date last, major title
In November 2009 Woods crashed his car and extraordinary details about his private life began to emerge
As the scandal erupted, Woods took himself away from the game but in February 2010 he made a televised apology for his actions, and returned to competitive golf at the Masters in April of that year
Further injuries, divorce and teething problems, with a revamped swing under a new coach, led to Woods being deposed as world number one after 281 weeks by Britain's Lee Westwood in October 2010
Woods fell to a career-low 58th in the world in November 2011 but victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March 2012 gave him his first PGA title for two-and-a-half years and took him back into the world's top 10
Meanwhile, Westwood, Martin Kaymer, Luke Donald and Rory McIlroy all had spells as world number one before McIlroy took a firm grip at the top of the rankings
But Woods followed up early-season wins at Doral and Torrey Pines with a successful defence of his Bay Hill crown to reclaim the world number one spot for the 11th time and bag a 77th PGA Tour title