Golf Figure. He is best remembered as the father and inspiration for professional golfer Tiger Woods; he was instrumental in his son's success by serving as his teacher, coach, and mentor. Born Earl Dennison Woods of mixed Black, Chinese and Native American ancestry in Manhattan, Kansas, he was the youngest and only boy, with three sisters, to a scorekeeper for baseball games. His father would teach him the game until his death in 1943. When his mother died in 1947, young Earl was raised by his oldest sister, Hattie Belle, for the next seven years. He attended Kansas State University on a baseball scholarship, playing the catcher position, and upon graduation from college in 1953 with a BA in Sociology (and a minor in Psychology), he turned down an offer to join the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League to start a career as an Infantry Second Lieutenant in the Army, following his commissioning from ROTC. He would serve two tours in Vietnam during that war, the first tour as a Personnel Officer in an Infantry unit (1967-1968), and the second as part of the Army's new Special Forces (Green Berets) (1972-1973). Early in his military career, he married Barbara Woods Gary; they would have three sons: Kevin, Earl Jr, and Royce. Although he rarely saw his family due to his military duties, they would later claim that they did not feel neglected during their upbringing although his marriage ended in divorce. It was in Thailand that he met his second wife, Kultida "Tida" Punsawad, who was of mixed Thai, Chinese and Dutch ancestry. They would have a son, Eldrick Tiger, born December 30, 1975, who Earl named for his South Vietnamese Army friend, Lieutenant Colonel Vuong Dang "Tiger" Phong. Earl would retire from the Army with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1974, settling in Cypress, California, serving in a variety of managerial jobs, including Major Subcontracts Administrator for Brunswick Corporation and materials manager for McDonnell Douglas, finally retiring again in 1988. He considered his most important job was to concentrate on raising his son. Earl would teach Tiger how to play golf from the age of 3, Tiger soon proved to be a golf prodigy. Earl shared many of his teaching techniques and child rearing theories in three books: "Training a Tiger" (1997), "Playing Through: Straight Talk on Hard Work, Big Dreams, and Adventures with Tiger" (1998), and "Start Something: You can Make a Difference" (2000). However, he made it very clear that his purpose was not to raise a good golfer, but to raise a good person. After Tiger won his third Masters, Earl stopped advising him, and began to enjoy his retirement with his wife. A chain smoker, in 1986 Woods had to have heart bypass surgery. In his later years, Woods suffered from diabetes, and in 1998, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Following treatment, it went into remission, only to return in 2004. Despite treatment, it spread into his entire body, and he died at his home in Cypress, California, on May 3, 2006. His hometown of Manhattan, Kansas, named the Earl Woods National Youth Golf Academy in his honor. But Earl Woods' proudest accolade came from Tiger himself, "My dad was my best friend, my mentor and greatest role model."