Tiger

of HBO Sports.

Please forgive me,

but sometimes, I get very emotional

when I talk about my son.

Daddy!

Daddy!

- Whoo! There it is.

- Whoo! Yeah!

- My heart... fills with so much joy

when I realize

that this young man

is going to help so many people.

He will transcend this game

and bring to the world

a humanitarianism

which has never been known before.

The world will be a better place to live in

by virtue of his existence

and his presence.

This is my treasure.

Please accept it

and use it wisely.

- Right now, I'd like you to meet Tiger Woods

and his father, Earl Woods.

Tiger, come here a minute.

Would you like to enter into a little competition

with Mr. Hope?

Tiger?

First, can I see you swing?

Maybe we'll try the driver first.

Oh, all right.

- Set us. - Hit that ball.

Oh!

Perfect!

Good boy, Tiger.

Earl, how old is...

How old are you, Tiger?

- Daddy... - Two.

- Two? - He's two.

- When did he start with a golf club?

- Um-- - Remember the first time

he picked one up?

Three months.

- Does he really love golf? You ever take him--

- Oh, he loves it. He loves it.

- How about a putting contest with Mr. Hope?

Can he putt, too? - Oh, yes.

- Okay. We'll let him putt first.

He knows. He knows.

- Rap it right in there. - Tap it right in there.

- When Tiger came out with that little bag of clubs,

a lot of people from a lot of corners

saw the potential of greatness,

and I think his father, Earl, was one of them.

He told me he knew

from the very start

that Tiger was going to be a legend.

And Earl would say, "Let the legend grow."

- When Tiger was less than 10 months old,

I brought him in the garage,

put him in a high chair,

strapped him in,

and he'd watch me hit balls into a golf net.

He was totally immersed in that activity,

so much so that he had to be fed in there

because when my wife tried to take him

out of the high chair to feed him,

no way.

No.

He said, "Mm-mm."

So she would have to feed him between shots,

and he'd go like this.

Between shots.

And it was beautiful to see,

but the... level of concentration

at that age was off the chart.

At ten months,

I unstrapped him out of his high chair one day,

and he walked over, sat up,

and hit the ball.

I said, "Oh, my God. I've got something special."

Good shot.

Whoo!

- Earl would take him to the golf course

and started working with him on putting.

He worked from the green back.

That was the secret

to how Earl instructed Tiger.

And his mother, Tida--

she was just as instrumental as Earl was.

- Oh. - Oh!

Too hard.

- Too hard. You're right.

- Tiger's vocabulary was not that advanced,

as you might imagine,

and when teaching him how to navigate

a golf course,

Earl had to dumb it down.

He had to talk at the level of a one- or two-year-old.

So when they came upon a water hazard,

Tiger would say, "Wa-wa, Daddy.

Wa-wa,"

and Earl would say, "Wa-wa, son.

Wa-wa..." "Wa-wa bad."

- His name is Eldrick Tiger Woods.

Tiger's only 2 1/2 years old,

and since he was eight months, he's been playing golf.

- Do you like playing golf? Yes or no?

Is it a lot of fun?

- Yes or no? - Yes or no?

Tiger.

Tiger, my career is in your hands right now.

Will you please help me? Do you like playing golf?

Yes or no?

We can't dictate to him

what he can be and what he cannot be.

So as a consequence, what we do is,

we participate with him in golf,

and if it was bowling,

we would participate with him in bowling.

Each and every one of us has their own life to live,

and he has a choice

to live his life the way he wants to live his life.

Earl would claim

that he would've been just as happy

had Tiger been a tuba player

or a guitarist

or, you know, anything other than a golfer,

but trust me,

Earl was a well-versed bullshitter.

Par, par, par.

- Mm, okay. You gonna make it par

on the last hole? - Uh-huh.

- Okay. All right, let's go do it.

- I think Earl had the master plan

since Tiger started walking.

Tiger had a small stammer,

and he didn't speak with you

until he felt comfortable

around the person, and then he would talk freely.

One day, Tiger opened up,

and he asked me

to ask his dad if he could play some other sports

besides just golfing,

and I told him I would.

None of the teachers were happy

to see Earl coming in for a conference

or for anything at all.

They said he was a pain in the ass.

That's what they said,

and I agreed with them.

He was a definite SOB.

So I didn't want to say anything to aggravate Earl,

but I did say that I thought it would be nice

if Tiger could play other sports,

but Mr. Woods said he had to concentrate

on his golf.

- I know what I'm looking at, and I know what I feel.

The talent is there to be the best

in the history of golf.

The world is ready

for a non-white golfer to be successful.

I have availed Tiger of this,

and he takes that responsibility seriously.

- So the first thing I've got to ask you is,

golf's quite often seen as, you know,

an upper-class white game. - Mm-hmm.

- Do you feel in some ways that you can help change that

if you became-- - Yes.

- If you became, like, the next Jack Nicklaus?

Since I'm Black, it might be

even bigger than Jack Nicklaus.

I might be even bigger than him...

to the Blacks.

I might be sort of like a Michael Jordan in basketball,

or something like that.

How about Tiger Woods?

- Well, Bret, on paper, Tiger Woods looks

like the prohibitive favorite in his match today.

- All right, Stephen, and as everyone knows,

if Tiger Woods can win it,

he would become the youngest amateur champion

in history.

- He's done it. Tiger Woods.

- Breaking both age and color barriers,

Tiger Woods won the U.S. Amateur Championship.

In sports, we report tonight

on a new face to watch on the golf tour.

Tiger Woods. - Tiger Woods.

- Tiger Woods extended his streak today.

The 19-year-old phenom

successfully defended his crown.

Oh!

What an impressive shot.

- Best teenage golfer in the history of this game.

- Certainly well-deserved hoopla

as Tiger Woods goes for his third straight,

which has never been done before.

He misses his putt,

he's got his work cut out for him.