Tiger Woods
"Let your clubs speak for you." Tiger Woods was
too young to notice
the racism around him. He didn't understand that in this
world, people were
judged by the color of their skin. He couldn't speak out
about it; he couldn't
voice his opinions, or come up with possible solutions
because he was too young.
Tiger faced many racial ordeals throughout his
life, mainly because he was
half-Thai and half-black. He broke into the sport
of golf as one of the
youngest. He not only wanted to be the best black
golfer; he wanted to be the b
est golfer. The only way Tiger dealt with
racism was to let his clubs do all the
talking for him. The book starts off
with Earl Woods, Tiger's father, during the
Vietnam War. A sniper almost
took out Earl but his friend saved him. Later on
that day, he gets in a
predicament with a bamboo viper, and once again, his
friend saves him. The
friend's name was Nguyen Phong, and he was good in combat;
he was a tiger in
combat. Nguyen Phong had the nickname of "Tiger".
Earl vowed that if he
ever had an other son, he would call him
"Tiger". After the war, back in the
United States, Earl met a Thai
woman named Kultida and he married her and had
a son. They named the baby
Eldrick, but Earl called him "Tiger". Tiger
Woods took interest in
golf at a young age. He would watch from his crib as
his father would practice
his swing. He began playing golf since before he
could walk. When he got a few
years older, he began to compete in the Junior
Nationals tournaments against
older boys. He didn't hav e the strength to
drive the ball far, but he had
skill; he was blessed. Earl made Tiger some
miniature clubs out of his old ones
and from that moment on, he was obsessed
with the sport. The way that Tiger
played, it was no longer a sport, it
became an art. With every hole he played,
his game progressed to a whole new
level. As Tiger grew older, he still played
tournaments and racked up his
victories, he even played for Harvard's golf team.
Harvard was interested
in having him play for them since an early age. Later on
in his career, he
started to show that he wasn't perfect. He showed that he too
made mistakes
and was just like everybody else. The author of the book
definitely knows a
lot about Tiger. He got a lot of information for the book
directly from
Kultida and Earl Woods. John Strege wanted others to get to know
Tiger.
He wrote this book to show how Tiger got to be where he is now. The
book
starts off with how Tiger got the name Tiger. It was obvious that the
author
admired Tiger. I really liked this book because I did not know where
Tiger got
his name. It was interesting to read about how Earl Woods vowed to
call his next
son Tiger to repay his friend Nguyen Phong for saving his life.
I am not one to
take interest in golf but this book was exciting. I liked
reading about how
Tiger started at a really young age and practiced
everyday to perfect his game.
Tiger is a good example of that if you put
your mind to something, if you try
hard enough, and focus all your atte n
tion on something, you can do it; that
right there you can apply to all
aspects of life, not just golf or any other
sport. I thought that this book
was going to be boring because golf is boring,
but I was really interested in
reading details about all these tournaments that
Tiger played in. I felt
as if I was really there watching Tiger play golf. I
don't think that there
was anything wrong with this book; I didn't dislike
anything about it. I
think the reason why I didn't find anything wrong w ith
this book was that
this book is a biography and you can't really change the
story too much
because it is about someone's life. If I could have changed a
part of the
book, I would probably have added what Tiger feels about racism now
that he
is older, instead of just reading "Let your clubs speak for
you" time and
time again throughout the book. It would have been
interesting to read how
the racism affected him. I recommend this book to
anybody who wants to learn
a little more about Tiger Woods. I think that anybody
would enjoy this book
whether they like golf or not. This book isn't 100% golf,
it is the biography
of Tiger Woods and it is all about how Tiger rose to fame
and became one of
the best golfers in the world. It is a good book and it should
be shared with
everyone else.