In 2005, at the age of 29, he won his 10th major golf championship, not only placing him 4th on the all-time list behind Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Jones, and Walter Hagen respectively, but also making him the only currently active golfer among the top 20 major champion winners. He also has more wins on the PGA Tour than any other active golfer. Woods, who is of mixed race, is credited with prompting a major surge of interest in the game of golf among minorities and young people in the United States.

Woods' late father, Earl Woods was a Vietnam War veteran and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, of mixed Black, Chinese and Native American ancestry. He was the chairman of his son's charitable foundation, the Tiger Woods Foundation, before his death at age 74 on May 3, 2006, following a lengthy battle with prostate cancer (see section Charity and youth projects below). Woods' mother, Kultida Woods, is originally from Thailand, and is of mixed Thai, Chinese, and Dutch ancestry. This makes Woods himself one quarter Chinese, one quarter Thai, one quarter African American, one eighth Native American, and one eighth Dutch[1]. He refers to his ethnic make-up as Cablinasian (a portmanteau of Caucasian, Black, American-Indian, and Asian), a term he made up himself.

Woods' actual given name is 'Eldrick'. He was given the nickname 'Tiger' at birth, after Vuong Dang Phong, a Vietnamese war comrade of his father's, and became generally known by that name. By the time he achieved national prominence in junior and amateur golf, he was simply known as "Tiger Woods".

Woods has two half-brothers, Earl Jr.(1955), Kevin (1957), and one half-sister Royce (1958) from the 18 year marriage of Earl Woods and his first wife, Barbara Woods Gary. Earl Jr.'s daughter Cheyenne Woods (1991)[2], Tiger's niece, is also a golfer and had received some coaching from Earl Sr.

In 2004, Woods became engaged to Elin Nordegren, a Swedish model. They were introduced by Swedish golf star Jesper Parnevik, who had employed her as a nanny, in November 2003. They married on October 5, 2004 and live at Isleworth, a community in Windermere, a suburb of Orlando, Florida. They also have homes in Jackson, Wyoming, California and Sweden. In January 2006, Woods and his wife purchased a US$39 million residential property in Jupiter Island, Florida, which they intend to make their primary residence. Woods' Jupiter Island neighbors will include golfers Greg Norman and Nick Price, as well as singers C�line Dion and Alan Jackson. In 2006, Woods was named Forbes highest paid athlete. [3

Eldrick (Tiger) was a child prodigy who began to play golf at three years old. While still a small child, he demonstrated his golf skills in a television appearance on the Mike Douglas Show. In 1984, he won the 9-10 boys' event at the Junior World Golf Championships; Tiger was only eight years old at the time, but 9-10 was the youngest age group available. Tiger went on to win the Junior World Championships six times, including four consecutive wins from 1988-1991. Woods then won the U.S. Junior Amateur title in 1991, 1992, and 1993; he remains the event's youngest-ever winner. He followed this by becoming the only person to win three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles over the next three years. He was a member of the American team at the 1994 World Amateur Golf Team Championships. With his first US Amateur win in 1994 over Trip Kuehne, the year that he graduated from high school, he became the youngest player ever to win that event. His five USGA Championships before age 20 qualify him for consideration as having the greatest under-20 golf career of all time. He attended Stanford University and won one NCAA individual championship. In 1996, Woods decided to drop out of Stanford after 2 years, to pursue professional golf.