2011 U.S. Open: Tiger Woods’s legacy in Washington has been hindered by personal problems and injuries

Think back four years ago, when Tiger Woods’s only competition as the world’s most dominant athlete was his buddy Roger Federer, the tennis star. Woods’s reputation as a golfer was unparalleled among his peers, the winner of 12 major championships at age 31. His marketability was unsurpassed. Off the course, he and his wife were expecting their first child.

And in March of that year, Woods all but single-handedly saved professional golf in Washington, creating a tournament out of thin air when the area’s PGA Tour event evaporated. Back then, Woods alone had the power to draw AT&T as a corporate sponsor for a new event, one that would benefit the Tiger Woods Foundation. Woods’s charitable arm, in turn, would have a home in the nation’s capital, where it could perhaps construct an East Coast version of the Tiger Woods Learning Center, a spectacular, sprawling $25 million complex in Anaheim, Calif.

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Tiger Woods, the world’s most prominent golfer and the sport’s biggest draw, announces injuries will keep him out of next week’s U.S. Open at Congressional in Bethesda.

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Tiger Woods pulls out of the U.S. Open because of lingering issues with his left leg, leaving him uncertain how soon he can resume his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus' record for major titles. (June 7)

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“It’s a dream come true for myself,” Woods said at the time.

Since then, Woods’s travails — scandal and divorce personally, injury and slump professionally — make up one of the best-known narratives in sports. His withdrawal from next week’s U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club is indicative of Woods’s journey. At one point, he might have been a good bet to match or surpass Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championships at the Bethesda course that is host to his signature tournament, putting the final touch on his athletic legacy while simultaneously deepening his connection to Washington.

Now, though, Woods has appeared just twice in his event here; he will miss what will be the area’s most significant golf tournament in more than a decade; and the AT&T National will be staged this summer, for the second year in a row, outside Philadelphia because Congressional needed a two-year hiatus to redo its greens and then host the Open.

Thus, Woods’s connection to the District lies in a pair of rooms in two charter schools — one in Northeast, the other on Capitol Hill — where small groups of kids zealously pursue a variety of projects in ambitious after-school programs.

“I felt uncomfortable with” a legacy limited to golf, Woods said in an interview last month in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. “There was something more. . . . With golf clinics, you’re in and out. There’s no leave-behind.’”

What, then, will Woods’s “leave-behind” be in Washington?

Adjusting the plan

Monday afternoon in a classroom on the second floor of the Cesar Chavez Charter School for Public Policy’s Parkside campus in Northeast Washington, classes had ended for the day, but eight middle school students worked away feverishly. An egg-drop contest approached, and not all of the apparatuses — laden with balloons, Styrofoam, straws, paper, tape, what have you — were complete yet.

“I like this program because it gets them focused on careers,” said Thomas Hailu, a Howard University graduate who serves as one of five instructors — three full-time, two part-time — at the two District campuses of the Tiger Woods Learning Center. “They can see a connection between what they do here and what they might do for a living.”