The influence of Tiger Woods’ father on his golfer son was considerable, helping turn him into a ‘cold-blooded assassin’ on the green – and an out-of-control womanizer in his personal life.
Earl Woods was a cheater, who spent his final years sleeping with dozens of women in a ‘house of horrors’ where sex toys were stuffed into every drawers, according to a new biography.
Earl Woods’ house – Tiger’s childhood home – became a ‘f***ing rodeo’ where women young enough to be his daughter paraded around.
One young woman who came in wearing a miniskirt and sat on Earl’s lap was immediately hired as Earl’s executive travel assistant.
The influence of Tiger Woods’ father Earl on his golfer son was considerable, helping turn him into a ‘cold-blooded assassin’ on the green – and an out-of-control womanizer in his personal life
Porn played on screens in the background all the time, sex toys filled the cabinets and a huge staff were paid in cash to perform sexual favors ‘at Earl’s request,’ write sports journalists Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian in their compelling new biography of the golfer titled Tiger Woods.
Benedict, a New York Times bestselling author, and Keteyian, an 11-time Emmy Award winning CBS contributor, write that Tiger’s relationship with his father is responsible for his astonishing success – but also laid the roots for his ruin.
Earl subjected his son to psychological warfare in his youth and called him a ‘little n*****’ during brutal training sessions to improve his golf game.
But another lesson that Earl appears to have taught his son was about how to behave around women.
According to the book, Earl’s womanizing was ‘well known’ to his family and that Tiger would break down in tears on the phone to friends talking about how he cheated on Kultida, his mother.
Earl’s habits included drinking, smoking and pornography that ‘drove a wedge between him and his family’.
The family creed was to keep quiet because ‘part of being a Woods was keeping secrets all in the family’, but Tiger was deeply conflicted about his father.
Tiger Woods Foundation poker tournament was held at this private nondescript Golf Club at Shadow creek Las Vegas – here with Mark Cuban
Tiger, 42, saw him as his hero but he could not bear his darker side.
Earl’s power over his son lasted until the early 2000s when Tiger began to shun him.
The book says that by then, when Tiger was on the best winning streak of his career, he ‘was his own man, weary of Earl’s antic’s’. Tiger grew closer to his mother, who moved out of his childhood home, leaving Earl there alone.
Earl ‘filled the voice by hiring a bevy of women’ to come to the property in Cypress, California, the book says.
According to Benedict and Keteyian, the women were ‘mostly blondes and brunettes, most of whom were young enough to be Tiger’s sister’.
‘Earl had his own executive assistant. He also had a personal assistant, traveling assistant, foundation assistant, cook, personal trainer, dog trainer, massage therapist, housekeeper and even a pedicurist.
‘According to one of them, a few of these women were employed by Tiger’s corporation but some were not and were paid in cash, their unspoken job description to do whatever it took to please Earl’.
Tiger knew by this stage that his father had repeatedly cheated on his mother and Earl made little attempt to hide it.
The authors write: ‘By 2000 Early had largely stopped showing up at tour events and the scene at Tiger’s childhood home had gotten out of hand.
‘Women came and went. Pornography played steadily on the television. Sex toys were stuffed in drawers and sexual favors were performed at Earl’s request.
‘It was a house of horrors’, recalled a former employee. ‘Every drawer, every cabinet’.
Benedict and Keteyian say that it is not clear how much Tiger knew about his father’s day to day life, but those who saw it first hand were appalled.
According to one individual with direct knowledge of the atmosphere, he called it a ‘f****ing rodeo’.
‘At one point a young woman who showed up for a job interview wearing a super-short mini skirt and cropped halter top promptly took a seat on Earl’s lap and hugged him.
In December 2001, as Tiger’s relationship with Elin gathered steam, he went to Vegas to party at Light, the new club inside the Bellagio where he had been given an all-expenses paid complimentary ticket by a friend
Kultida Woods and her son at the dedication of the statue honoring his father Earl Woods at the Tiger Woods Learning Center on January 21, 2008 in Anaheim, California
‘She was immediately hired to be his executive travel assistant’.
By 2005 however the environment in Earl’s home completely changed as health problems meant that he was ‘virtually incapacitated’ and the only person who was a regular visitor was the full time assistant.
Earl died in May 2006 aged 74.
Although Tiger’s career remained on track, he gradually became unstuck.
In December 2001, as Tiger’s relationship with Elin gathered steam, he went to Vegas to party at Light, the new club inside the Bellagio where he had been given an all-expenses paid complimentary ticket by a friend.
The club became Tiger’s destination of choice and one Vegas insider described it as ‘absolutely crazy, out of control’.
One night Tiger and another high profile athlete, who is not named, were in the VIP section when they saw some attractive women partying at a table nearby and sent a host to ask them over.
The women, a brunette and a blonde, were told: ‘Tiger Wood would like you at his table’.
They came over and the foursome ended up in Tiger’s suite in the Bellagio where they stripped off and got in the hot tub.
The book says that shortly after, Tiger led the brunette by the hand out of the tub and walked her towards the bedrooms.
But instead of choosing one he ‘walked her straight into a closet and had his way with her in the dark’.
The book says: ‘The rough nature of the encounter shocked the brunette. She was left wondering why he couldn’t have at least taken her to a bed’.
In 2009 his double life as a sex addict who had repeatedly cheated on his wife Elin Nordegren became public when she found out and chased him out of their house with a golf club.
Tiger had apparently absorbed his father’s philandering ways and copied them in his own life.
By that time Earl had been buried for years – after his death Kultida flew his ashes to Manhattan, a small town near Kansas City where he was born.
Tiger’s parents orchestrated the breakup of his relationship with the love of his life Dina Gravell in 1995 while he was a student at Stanford after four years together
For reasons Kultida never publicly explained, she buried his ashes in an unmarked grave.
The book suggests that it could have been a subtle act of revenge for the lifetime of hurt he inflicted on her.
Earl had brought Kultida to America from her native Thailand whilst still married to his first wife.
Over the years he ‘degraded her with verbal abuse and insults’ and made impossible predictions about Tiger’s success from an early age.
Then he took all the credit when he miraculously achieved what he had said he would.
In the early years of Tiger’s career both his parents exerted a staggering level of influence over their son.
In fact they orchestrated the breakup of his relationship with the love of his life Dina Gravell in 1995 while he was a student at Stanford after four years together by spreading rumors about her.
Dina was one of the very few people Tiger trusted outside of his family and the suggestion is that it was a power play to kick her out of his inner circle by his parents.
Dina was watching him play at the American College Invitational in Palo Alto, California, when she tried to speak to Tiger’s parents, but they ignored her.
Later on she was shocked to get a note from Tiger that said he wanted to ‘inform you of my absolute anger and disappointment in you’.
The letter said: ‘Today I heard from my parents that you were telling everyone in the gallery who would listen that you were ‘Tiger’s girlfriend’.
‘Then you have the nerve to tell me in the clubhouse when a reporter asks who you were, you responded with ‘just a friend’’.
Woods said that his family ‘never want to talk or hear from you again’.
He wrote: ‘Reflecting back on this relationship I feel used and manipulated by you and your family. I hope the rest of your life runs well for you. I know this is sudden and a surprise but it, in my opinion, is much warranted’.
Dina was shocked because ‘none of it made sense’, the book says.
Tiger Woods is seen handcuffed and searched by police officers in this still image from police dashcam video in Jupiter, Florida, U.S. on May 29, 2017
She had not spoken to anybody in the clubhouse or the stands and actually had made a point of avoiding people. Nor had Dina spoken to Tiger’s parents, who made a point of avoiding her.
Dina collapsed in her own mother’s arms, sobbing. The book says that her mother was ‘galled that Tiger’s parents had accused her daughter of being something other than his best friend.’
Eight months later Tiger wrote her another letter saying he was ‘truly sorry for what I did to you and your family’ and that he regretted the way he’d spoken to her.
The book also goes over Tiger’s wild days in Las Vegas where he learned how to party and gamble under the tutelage of former NBA star Charles Barkley.
Tiger quickly became a ‘whale’, meaning a high stakes gambler, with a credit line of a cool million and celebrated his 21st birthday at the MGM casino where he would stay at one of the ultra exclusive villas.
There he could anything he wanted on request, be it fine dining, alcohol, women and, most importantly, complete discretion.
The book describes Vegas as Woods’ private playground’ where he could indulge himself without fear of scrutiny.
In the book Barkley is described as Woods’ ‘long lost older brother’.
He says that his advice to Woods, who had spent his whole life being told what to do by his dad, was to loosen up.
Barkley said: ‘I would always say, it doesn’t do any good to be Tiger Woods if you’re not going to f***ing enjoy being Tiger Woods. Part of being great is you have to enjoy it’.
Tiger with Charles Barkley (left) and Michael Jordan. Jordan, who reinforced Tiger’s stingy approach to money and his entitled attitude toward his staff, the book says
Current girlfriend Erica Herman holds on tight after the Presidents Cup on October 1, 2017, at Liberty National Golf Clubin Jersey City NJ.
One night at the craps table where Tiger was playing Barkley paid tribute to his friend, saying that other golfers were ‘soft as s***’ and that Tiger was ‘Black Jesus’.
Another Vegas mentor for Tiger was Michael Jordan, the NBA legend, who was one of the few people who had been as famous as Tiger would become.
Jordan reinforced Tiger’s stingy approach to money and his entitled attitude toward his staff, the book said.
Although Tiger was already known for being parsimonious, having somebody he regarded as a big brother doing the same showed him it was okay.
The authors say that staff who worked in casinos at the time found Jordan to be aloof and arrogant and he would barely tip caddies, bar staff or servers, or just not bother at all.
Jordan thought it was acceptable to blast past people on the golf course in his cart with music blaring out, shouting: ‘Hurry the f*** up! You guys are slow as f***’.
As one Vegas insider put it, Jordan was a ‘complete f***ing a**hole’ and he took the young Woods right under his wing.