They buried the ashes and left.Īfter a brief stop at the house where Earl grew up - strangers owned it, so the Woods family stood in the front yard and told a few stories, and this being rural Kansas, the neighbors didn't interrupt or ask for autographs - everyone headed back to the airport. Tiger stayed strong, comforting his mother, and Earl Jr. Two cedars and five pines rose into the air. The family gathered around a hole in the ground, between Earl's parents, Miles and Maude Woods. The graveyard was cool in the shade, the hills rolling from the street toward a gully. Earl, a former Green Beret and Vietnam combat veteran, would have liked that. He and his siblings landed and drove to the Sunset Cemetery, a mile southwest of K-State's campus, past the zoo and a high school and a cannon dedicated to the memory of dead Union soldiers.
Sitting in the plane, Tiger didn't say much. "What are you looking at?" Kevin had asked him. Kevin retold a favorite about a camping trip with a 10- or 11-year-old Tiger, in a forest of tall trees: While walking to use the bathroom, Tiger had stopped and peered high into the branches. His siblings tried to talk about the old days. MacMullan: How advice from the King of Pop shaped Kobe Bryant Thompson: Walking the Masters in memory of my father He put the urn holding his father's remains directly across from him - Royce made a joke about "strapping Dad in" - and when the pilot pushed the throttles forward to lift off, Royce said, Tiger stretched out his legs to hold the urn in place with his feet. There were six passengers total, and Tiger plopped down in his usual seat, in the front left of the plane. sat at a table, and Kevin sat across from them on a couch. Tiger's half siblings came along Royce and Earl Jr.
Elin did college homework, which she often did during any free moment, in airplanes or even on fishing trips, working toward her degree in psychology. Tiger's mom, Tida, and his wife, Elin, sat together in the Gulfstream IV, facing each other, according to Royce.
Three days later, on May 6, 2006, the family gathered at a private air terminal in Anaheim to take Earl's remains back to Manhattan, Kansas, where he grew up. "You're waiting for him to wake up?" Tiger asked. Royce says she sat with her father on the bed, rubbing his back, like she'd done the last few hours as he faded. Earl died three steps from his son's old room. If Earl wanted, he could go see the Obi-Wan Kenobi poster still hanging on Tiger's closet door, or find an old Nintendo or Lego Star Destroyer. His dad never sold the house because he liked the easily accessible nostalgia. Tiger got the call and came straight to Cypress, passing the Navy golf course where he learned to play, turning finally onto Teakwood Street. About an hour earlier, Earl had taken two or three final breaths that sounded different from the ones that came before. Outside this bedroom in Cypress, California, the mechanism of burial and goodbye sputtered into action, while inside, Tiger and his half sister, Royce, floated in those gauzy first hours after a death, when a loved one isn't there but doesn't quite seem gone either. Ten years ago, Tiger Woods sat in his boyhood home across from his father's body, waiting on the men from the funeral home to arrive and carry Earl away.
Watch some of the Masters' most memorable moments Friday on ESPN. Editor's note: This story on Tiger Woods was originally published on April 21, 2016.