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Tiger Woods Is Building A Washington Foundation
Tiger Woods will host a PGA Tour event here in July and plans on building an area learning center.
(By Melina Mara -- The Washngton Post)
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On the way to the Capitol in his car, a hungry Woods said, "When can we eat?" He rummaged in a bag in the front seat and seized a cereal bar, and tore open the package. As he ate, Woods explained what lured him to Washington: The capital offered a host city with stature and connections, he suggested, but more than anything, it had an irresistible patriotic draw. Woods's father served two tours in Vietnam.
"Our commander-in-chief says go, and you go," Woods said. "That's what you do as a serviceman or servicewoman, you do your duty and do your job, and whether you're praised for it or not, that's your job and your occupation and that's what you chose."
Father and son started out their charitable enterprise by doing junior golf clinics together when Woods was just a prodigy, he reminisced. But one day he had enough of clinics. "I feel like I'm a circus," he told his father. "I'm here for one week and then gone for 51. We need to have something that kids can touch, bricks and mortars." Woods told his father that he wanted a building, a learning center, in which kids could explore far-flung careers. "I had this whole idea, this whole plan laid out," Woods remembered.
"All right," Earl said. "Go make it happen."
The Tiger Woods Learning Center, a $25 million project, opened in Anaheim in February 2006. It was launched with $6 million of seed money from Woods, and was stocked with computer equipment and other learning tools. Woods, who spent two years at Stanford, contends that education is his second great interest in life. When his playing days are over, it will be his chief one, he said.
"Without a doubt, when I retire that's all I'm going to do. I was raised in a household in which, if I did not have my homework done, I could not go play or practice, or go play with my friends," he said. "I couldn't do any of those activities unless I had my homework done. It was always school first."
The car arrived at the Capitol, and Woods, coatless, climbed out into a light snow. "This isn't Florida," he said, hunching as flakes fell on his shoulders, and gazed up at the white marble edifice.
Woods made his way inside, surrounded by a phalanx of publicists, aides and security guards. At first, he passed through the building almost unnoticed by sightseers and schoolchildren, who were preoccupied by the bronze and marble statuary and oil portraits of founding fathers. He was half way across the Rotunda when a schoolboy suddenly realized who had just passed him by.
"Tiger Woods is here," the boy said.
"Oh, sweet," said another.
