Tont(o)!

Forgive me, for there's going to be a little Tiger Woods-related content since I'm currently reading an unofficial biography, written by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian. Tiger has always been a bit of an enigma, where reliable information about his personal life and the inner workings of arguably the greatest golfer of all time has been hard to come by, which is exactly why reading a chronicle like this one is more than likely to elicit a few "shit, didn't know that!" moments.

The first of those moments came early on, when I learned Tiger's mum is Thai. She was working in Bangkok when Earl, Tiger's already-married father, was stationed over there during his career in the military. Kultida (Tiger's mother), unaware Earl was already married with three children, fell for Earl and eventually moved back to the US with him, where they married and Tiger was eventually born.

It's fairly common knowledge that Tiger isn't his real first name, and that his real name is Eldrick (the E representing Earl, and the K representing Kultida). A common misconception is that ETW doesn't stand for Eldrick Tiger Woods - it's actually Eldrick Tont Woods, and Tiger is just a nickname given to him by Earl, as a nod to a Vietnamese comrade who Earl credits for saving his life multiple times during the Vietnam War, also nicknamed Tiger.

And that's what I learned today.