The war in Vietnam is the story of how the United States got itself embroiled in a long, costly battle with a Southeast Asian country that had little strategic significance, killing an estimated 3.8 million people in its wake. It was a military effort doomed from the very beginning, per the Pentagon Papers. Serving in the war was a Lieutenant Colonel whose son would go on to become the greatest golfer of all time.
And as the war in Vietnam approached its inevitable end, the origins of a legend, both in being and name, would unfold, changing the face of golf forever.
Exploring Tiger Woods’ Connection With the War in Vietnam
Back in 1966, while deployed in Thailand in between his two tours of Vietnam, Earl Dennison Woods met Kultida Punsawad, a Thai native who served as a secretary for the US Army office in Bangkok. After a year of dating, the couple decided to move to Brooklyn, New York, where they would get married in 1969. After their marriage, Earl would return for one final tour of Vietnam between 1970 and 1971.
Earl had officially retired from military service by the time the war ended, all set to start a new life with his sole focus being his son, who was born just six months after the US closed its embassy in Saigon following the capture of the city by the Vietnamese communists, aka the Viet Cong.
The boy was named Eldrick Tont Woods, his first name being an amalgamation of both the E in “Earl” and the K in “Kultida.” It was symbolic of a couple who had endured harassment and vandalism of their home as a result of their inter-racial marriage, acting as powerful pillars at either end of their son’s name. His middle name, Tont, was Kultida’s way of honoring her Thai roots. But how did Eldrick Tont Woods become Tiger Woods? The tale, as the legend goes, is both heartwarming and heart-wrenching at the same time.
The origins of ‘Tiger’ Woods
Earl nicknamed his son ‘Tiger’ in honor of his long lost friend in the army. While Earl was on his final tour in Vietnam back in 1970, he found himself surrounded by enemy fire. The American base he was stationed at was being occupied by a massive North Vietnamese and Viet Cong contingent, forcing most of the US soldiers to evacuate the base. Earl was trapped amid the crossfire with his close friend Lieutenant Colonel Vuong Dang Phong, in their two-jeep caravan. As their lives hung in the balance, Phong assured Woods that they would live to tell the tale. And so they did. Woods, with his M-79 grenade launcher and Phong holding on to the jeep’s machine-gun turret, managed to survive the night. They would later relive the tale over a drink in Phong’s room back at the base camp, laughing and discussing jazz, philosophy, and baseball.
Their bond grew stronger through the war, so much so that they made a promise to find each other once the war was over. But little did they know that they would never see each other again.
Phong was captured by the North Vietnamese authorities and sent to a reeducation camp where he would end up being tortured and starved to death a year later. His grave was discovered a decade later. Earl always described Phong as being ferocious and fierce, and thus nicknamed him ‘Tiger’ during their days in the war. But when he glanced into his son’s eyes and saw the same ferociousness, he knew that he had to name him after his best friend.
Earl, unaware of what had happened, hoped that ‘Tiger’ would one day find him through his son. “Someday, my old friend would see him on television…and say, ‘That must be Woody’s kid,’ and we’d find each other again,” he later admitted in an interview. By the time Earl found out about his friend’s death, Tiger Woods had won his first Masters in 1997. “Boy, does this ever hurt,” Earl said “I’ve got that old feeling in my stomach, that combat feeling.”
As Tiger Woods celebrated his first major win as a professional golfer in 1997, Vietnam opened its first professional golf course on a rice paddy field which was a site of US bombing during the war; one of the golf holes created by filling a bomb crater.
Thus, Eldrick Tont Woods is a product of the Vietnam War. His identity stands rooted in it. The ferociousness that Earl saw in his son’s eyes would go on to manifest in his game, making him the greatest golfer to have ever graced the sport. Thus, a legend was born.
