Tiger woods father military rank

American professional golfer (born 1975)

For other uses, see Tiger Woods (disambiguation).

Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born

Tiger Woods has amassed millions of fans throughout his illustrious career, but there's two supporters who have been there for the pro golfer through it all: his parents Earl and Kultida Woods.

Woods' parents were married for 37 years until Earl died in May 2006 at their home in Cypress. Kultida died nearly two decades later in February 2025 at the age of 81.

Earl and Kultida first met in the 1960s amid the Vietnam War. As a soldier in the U.S. Army Special Forces, Earl was deployed to the same base in Thailand where Kultida, née Punsawad, worked as a secretary.

The pair quickly fell in love, and, smitten with the Green Beret, Kultida followed Earl back to New York, where they married before settling down and starting a family in Cypress, Calif.. In 1975, they welcomed their son, future golf superstar Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods.

Fans looked intimately at the golfer's upbringing in HBO's Tiger in 2021. The two-part documentary featured home videos and archived audio, including one of Earl recalling the first time he saw Tiger putt a ball. "When Tiger was 10 months old, I unstrapped him out of his high chair one day and he walked over and hit the ball," Earl recalled. "I said, 'Oh my God, I've got something special.' "

Despite growing up with a soldier for a father, Tiger has said it was his mother he was "deathly afraid of" as a child. "My dad was always the person who would plant seeds and give me encouragement but also would say things that would fester inside me that wouldn't come to fruition for a while. He was very worldly and deep in his thinking," he told USA Today in 2017.

Kultida, on the other hand, was an "enforcer," Tiger said. "My dad may have been in the Special Forces, but I was never afraid of him. My mom's still here and I'm still deathly afraid of her. She's a very tough, tough old lady, very demanding. ... I love her so much, bu

Tiger Woods' father is Earl Woods Sr.

Earl Woods was born on March 5, 1932, in Kansas, and he died on May 3, 2006, at his home in Cypress, California. He was 74 years old at the time of his death, which followed a lengthy battle with prostate cancer.

Earl Woods Sr. History

Woods was a baseball player in his youth and was the first African-American to play baseball for Kansas State University - and what is now the Big 12 Conference - when he joined the team in 1951. (Earl said his family heritage included black, Caucasian, and Native American ancestors.) He earned a degree in sociology from the school, then entered in the United States Army.

Woods served during the Vietnam War (including as a member of the Army Special Forces, a k a the Green Berets) and retired from active duty in 1974 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

It was in 1966, while stationed in Thailand, that Tiger Woods' father met Kultida Punsawad. They married in 1969.

But Kultida Woods wasn't Earl Woods' first wife. That was Barbara Gray, whom Earl married in 1954 and divorced in 1968. Earl and Barbara had three children together, Earl Jr., Kevin, and Royce, who are Tiger's half-siblings. Earl Woods Jr. is the father of Cheyenne Woods, Tiger Woods' niece and also a competitive golfer.

Birth of Tiger

Earl Sr. and Kultida had a child of their own in 1975, and that child is Tiger Woods.

Tiger Woods' father didn't take up golf until he was in his 40s, but Earl introduced his son to golf in Tiger's earliest years. At age 2, Tiger, with his father Earl, appeared on the television talk show The Mike Douglas Show. Tiger was a phenom in golf from that point on, and Earl and Tiger appeared on other national television shows during Tiger's youth.

Earl Woods both guided Tiger's development in golf, and he also shared the spotlight. Tiger Woods' father was never one to shy away from attention on himsel

Earl Dennison Woods (1932 –2006) was the father of Tiger Woods. Woods started his son in golf at a very early age and coached him during his first years in the sport. He later published two books about the process. Woods served two tours of duty in South Vietnam and retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

The National Archive provided Medic with a brief and faulty summary of Earl Wood’s military service. No other information was offered.

Oddly, there is very little detailed information available on the 1954-1974 military career of Woods. It is commonly held  that Earl did two tours in Vietnam—the first as an infantry officer, the second with Special Forces. However, in a 2008 Golf Digest profile Woods initially stated, “The first time [’67-’68], I was a personnel officer, with civilian personnel and administrative responsibilities.” Yet this was in Thailand, where, in the same article, Earl said, “I was the special-services officer, and I ran bowling alleys, movie theaters, softball diamonds, libraries, resorts, everything….” Not in Vietnam. And his responsibilities may have been elsewhere. In a 2020 Golf Digest article, the author Tom Callahan writes  “I returned home to a message from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. My Freedom of Information Act request had been granted. Earl Dennison Woods served in the Republic of Vietnam from Feb. 12, 1962 to Feb. 24, 1963, and from Aug. 15, 1970 to Aug. 13, 1971.” Earl may have been one of  President Kennedy’s early advisors in Vietnam.

Interviewed by Charlie Rose in 1997, Earl stated that he saw heavy combat on his second tour  with Special Forces. He did not discuss the locations or military units he served with, and Rose did not inquire. Given the second tour dates of Aug. 15, 1970 to Aug. 13, 1971 Woods missed the May-July 1970 dubious Cambodia invasion, the 8 February – 25 March 1971 disastrous ARVN Lam Son 7