Tiger Woods timeline: From the Mike Douglas show at age 2 to turning 50

Oct. 6, 1978 — At age 2, makes an appearance on “The Mike Douglas Show” on daytime television and hits a driver with Bob Hope watching.

July 28, 1991 — Wins the first of three straight U.S. Junior Amateur titles by beating Brad Zwetschke in 19 holes at Bay Hill.

Aug. 28, 1994 — Wins the first of three straight U.S. Amateurs by making a key putt on the 17th hole of the TPC Sawgrass in a 2-up victory over Trip Kuehne.

Nov. 30, 1994 — As a freshman at Stanford, Woods gets mugged in the parking lot behind his dormitory on his way home from dinner. He is robbed of a gold watch and bracelet and struck in the jaw.

Aug. 25, 1996 — Woods rallies from 5 down after the morning session to defeat Steve Scott in 38 holes at Pumpkin Ridge and become the first player in history to win three straight U.S. Amateurs.

Aug. 27, 1996 — Turns pro at the Greater Milwaukee Open by sending a statement to the tournament office that said, “This is to confirm that as of now, I am a professional golfer.”

Oct. 6, 1996 — Wins the first of his 82 titles on the PGA Tour at the Las Vegas Invitational in a playoff over Davis Love III.

April 13, 1997 — Wins the first of his 15 major championships at the Masters. He opens with a 40 on the front nine Thursday and plays 22-under par over the final 63 holes to win by 12 shots and set or tie 27 tournament records.

June 15, 1997 — Reaches No. 1 in the world for the first time just 290 days after turning pro.

June 18, 2000 — Completes the most dominant performance in 140 years of majors by winning the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 15 shots. He becomes the only player to win the U.S. Junior Amateur, the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Open.

July 23, 2000 — Wins the British Open at St. Andrews to become at age 24 the youngest player with the career Grand Slam.

April 8, 2001 — Wins the Masters to become the only player in history to hold all four major titles at the same time.

May 13, 2005 — Misses the cut at the Byron Nelson Classic, ending his record streak of 142 consecutive PGA Tour events over seven years making the cut.

June 12, 2005 — Returns to No. 1 in the world and starts 281 consecutive weeks at the top, the longest stretch since the Official World Golf Ranking began in 1986.

Dec. 30, 2005 — Turns 30. He has 42 PGA Tour wins and 10 majors.

June 16, 2006 — Misses the cut at the U.S. Open in his first tournament back since his father died. It's his first missed cut in a major as a pro.

Aug. 20, 2006 — Wins the PGA Championship at Medinah to become the the only player in history to win multiple majors in consecutive years.

June 16, 2008 — Wins his third U.S. Open title in a 19-hole playoff against Rocco Mediate at Torrey Pines while competing with torn knee ligaments and two stress fractures in his left leg.

June 24, 2008 — Has reconstructive surgery on his left knee and misses the rest of the year.

Nov. 27, 2009 — Florida Highway Patrol sends a report that Woods has been seriously injured in a car accident. He is treated and released, the first news item that led to revelations he had been in multiple extramarital affairs that ultimately led to his wife divorcing him.

April 10, 2010 — Having not competed for 146 days, Woods returns from the scandal in his personal life and opens with a 68 at the Masters. He finishes tied for fourth.

March 24, 2013 — He wins at Bay Hill and for the 11th and final time returns to No. 1 in the world and stays there for one year and two months.

April 1, 2014 — He has the first of what would be seven surgeries on his lower back, causing him to miss the Masters for the first time since he was a senior in high school.

Dec. 30, 2015 — Turns 40. He has 79 PGA Tour titles and 14 majors.

May 30, 2017 — He is arrested and briefly jailed in Jupiter, Florida, on suspicion of DUI. Police find him asleep behind the wheel of his car in the early morning with the engine running. He attributes it to a bad combination of pain medication.

April 14, 2019 — Wins the Masters for the fifth time, his first major title in nearly 11 years because of injuries.

Oct. 28, 2019 — Wins the Zozo Championship in Japan for his 82nd career PGA Tour title, tying the record held by Sam Snead.

Feb, 23, 2021: Crashes his SUV in Los Angeles going 85 mph in a 45 mph zone and breaks bones in the upper and lower sections of his right leg.

April 12, 2024: Sets a Masters record by making his 24th consecutive 36-hole cut.

March 11, 2025 — Has surgery for a ruptured left Achilles tendon. With back surgery in the fall, it becomes his first year as a pro he did not play a single tournament.

Dec. 30, 2025 — Turns 50. He has 82 PGA Tour titles and 15 majors.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

FILE - In this aerial image take from video provided by KABC-TV, a vehicle rest on its side after a rollover accident involving golfer Tiger Woods along a road in the Rancho Palos Verdes suburb of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021. (KABC-TV via AP, File)

FILE - Tiger Woods wears his green jacket holding the winning trophy after the final round for the Masters golf tournament, Sunday, April 14, 2019, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

FILE - Tiger Woods holds onto his knee as he comes out of a bunker on the fourth hole during the third round of the US Open championship at Torrey Pines Golf Course, in San Diego, Tuesday June 14, 2008. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

FILE - Tiger Woods kisses the winner's trophy after capturing the 100th U.S. Open Golf Championship at the Pebble Beach Golf Links, in Pebble Beach, Calif., Sunday, June 18, 2000. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

FILE - Tiger Woods answers questions at a news conference following play in the pro-am at the Greater Milwaukee Open Wednesday, Aug. 28, 1996, at the Brown Deer Golf Course, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Peter Zuzga, File)

Talk to any golfer who played against Tiger Woods and there is sure to be at least one story about one shot so sublime they were certain it could not be hit by them or anyone else.

He was just different. Better.

The 2-iron Woods hit into the par-5 10th hole at the TPC Sugarloaf led Stewart Cink to say, “This is a skill set I don't have.” Padraig Harrington once saw Woods hit an 8-iron so majestic at Firestone that it got in his head and led to the Irishman making triple bogey.

Nick Price played the opening two rounds with Woods at St. Andrews in the 2000 British Open and felt the tournament already was over. Mark O'Meara played a practice round with him at Pebble Beach before the 2000 U.S. Open and told his wife before the championship started, “Tiger is going to win. And not only is he going to win, he's going to blow away the field.” Woods won by 15.

For all those years, so many greats in the game could never relate to Woods. And now, finally, they can.

Not even Woods can beat time. He turns 50 on Tuesday.

It’s a milestone for anyone, but it’s different in golf because the sport can be played well after the age when athletes have long retired in other sports. Phil Mickelson won a major at 50. Jack Nicklaus made an early Sunday charge at the Masters when he was 58.

With Woods, it's complicated.

He now is eligible for the 50-and-older PGA Tour Champions. He also has had more surgeries than the 15 majors he won. This is the first year he didn't play a single tournament, the result of a ruptured Achilles tendon in March and a seventh back surgery in September.

“I'm probably going to play 25 events on both tours and I think that should cover most of the year, right?” Woods quipped in the Bahamas when asked about turning 50.

He won the U.S. Open just eight days before reconstructive surgery on his left knee. He won the Masters two years after surgery to fuse his lower back. But he hasn't been the same since that 2021 car crash in Los Angeles. Woods has played 11 times the last five seasons, finished only four of those tournaments and hasn't been closer than 16 shots to the winner.

“Come back to what point?” Woods said. “I'd like to come back to just playing golf again.”

And so this celebration is more about looking back than forward.

Ernie Els was most prescient in 2000 at Kapalua when he was on the losing end again — no one finished second to Woods more than the Big Easy. They matched eagles on the 18th in regulation, birdies on the 18th in a playoff and Woods got him with a 40-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole. Vintage Tiger.

“I think he’s a legend in the making,” Els said that day. “He’s 24. He’s probably going to be bigger than Elvis when he gets into his 40s.”

That's up for debate, of course. Undeniable is the impact Woods has left on golf.

Popularity soared and prize money skyrocketed. Woods made golf look different and he made it cool. And perhaps his greatest legacy is he unwittingly trained a generation of players who wanted to be like him. Scottie Scheffler said nothing inspired him more than watching the intensity of Woods when he was out of contention at the 2020 Masters. Woods made a 10 on the 12th hole and followed with five birdies over his last six holes. He tied for 38th.

“Tiger was just different in the way he approached each shot. It was like the last shot he was ever going to hit,” Scheffler said. It was the only time they played together. Scheffler now is coming up on three years at No. 1 in the world, the longest stretch since Woods.

But it started with that skill set unlike any other.

“He's the only guy I've ever known who continually exceeded expectations,” Tom Lehman said. “No matter how much you heaped on him, he found a way to exceed them.”

Lehman recalls one moment at the Memorial on the 17th hole, a green so rock-hard it felt impossible to get it close. Lehman hit 5-iron as high and far as he could and was pleased to see it roll out 25 feet from the cup.

“He hits this shot way up in the air and it was coming down like a parachute,” Lehman said. "Lands by the cup and bounces 2 feet and stops. I figure he must have hit a 7-iron. I said, ‘Tiger, what club was that?’ He said, ‘That was a little, three-finger 5-iron.’ He just filleted it in there.

“When I think of him, that's what I think of. Only one guy could hit that shot. And he did it often.”

Woods had the career Grand Slam at age 24, the youngest of anyone. He had 50 wins worldwide and 10 majors before he turned 30.

It wasn't as easy as he could make it look. The late Dan Jenkins once said when Woods was in peak form, “Only two things can stop Tiger — injury or a bad marriage.” Turns out it was both. His path was derailed at the end of 2009 by revelations of multiple extramarital affairs, and the injuries kept piling up. He still made it back to No. 1 in the world in 2013 and he ran his PGA Tour victory count to 82, tied with Sam Snead.

“If he never got injured, he'd have 25 majors and 125 wins,” Fred Couples said.

Matt Kuchar saw it differently. He felt the injuries contributed to the legend of Woods, particularly that 2008 U.S. Open win at Torrey Pines.

Woods was playing that week on shredded ligaments in his left knee and two stress fractures in his left leg. Often overlooked is that Woods had not walked 18 holes since the Masters until the opening round at Torrey Pines.

“The legacy is bigger because of the injuries,” Kuchar said. “What he did at Torrey Pines, what he did at the (2019) Masters is sort of Hoganesque. At some point I, like most everybody, counted him out. And then he wins again.”

Woods is keeping plenty busy outside the ropes. He was appointed to the PGA Tour policy board without a term limit in 2023 as the tour was in the midst of its battle with Saudi-funded LIV Golf. He now heads up the Future Competition Committee charged with reshaping the tour model.

The next question is when — and where — he plays. Woods is the only player to have won the U.S. Junior Amateur, U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open. The U.S. Senior Open is at Scioto, the Ohio course where Jack Nicklaus learned to play.

April at Augusta isn't the same without Woods. He set the Masters record in 2024 by making the cut for the 24th consecutive time. How much more? How much longer?

“People want to see him,” Kuchar said. “And if he shoots 76, people still want to see him. He's unique in our sport.”

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

FILE - Tiger Woods of the U.S. gestures to the crowd at the end of his second round of the British Open golf championship on the Old Course, in St. Andrews, Scotland, Friday July 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison, File)

FILE - Tiger Woods wears his green jacket holding the winning trophy after the final round for the Masters golf tournament, Sunday, April 14, 2019, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

FILE - Tiger Woods, right and his son Charlie Woods bump fists on the ninth green during the first round of the PNC Championship golf tournament, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2022, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Kevin Kolczynski, File)

FILE - Tiger Woods watches his approach shot to the 18th green during the third round of the U.S. Open golf tournament Saturday, June 19, 2010, at the Pebble Beach Golf Links, in Pebble Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

FILE - Tiger Woods reacts as he wins the Masters golf tournament, Sunday, April 14, 2019, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)