![]() With the family looking on, Mohler carefully packed the hole with dirt, leveled off the top, and covered it with a piece of sod. He placed it in the hole and added cement. Near the end of the twenty-minute ceremony, Kultida handed Mohler the wooden box containing her husband’s ashes. Tiger his wife, Elin and Tiger’s mother got out of the first car, and Earl’s three children from his first marriage exited the second. The next day, at around noon, two limousines pulled up to an old section of the cemetery. Using a shovel, he scraped away the loose dirt from the sides, making the edges ruler-straight. It was twelve inches long by twelve inches wide, and forty-two inches deep. After nearly an hour of digging, he had fashioned a grave that resembled a miniature elevator shaft. Tiger and his mother, Kultida, were flying from Southern California with a shallow ten-inch-by-ten-inch square wooden box that contained Earl’s ashes. Earl’s would be a lot smaller than most: he had been cremated. Since taking over as sexton in 1989, Mohler had dug more than two thousand graves. Using a cemetery map, Mohler had located Earl’s burial lot-block 5, lot 12, grave 02-right between his parents, Miles and Maude Woods. Still, he admired Tiger Woods, and he took great pride in digging the elder Woods’s grave. Dozens of golf telecasts had similarly ended with the two of them embracing and Earl whispering those same four words.īut Mike Mohler didn’t watch golf tournaments. In what was the most-watched golf broadcast in US history, an estimated forty-three million viewers-almost 15 percent of all American households-witnessed father and son sobbing in each other’s arms as Earl said, I love you, son. Immediately after Tiger sank his final putt to win the 1997 Masters by a record twelve strokes, Earl gave him an iconic bear hug. Together they shared one of the most memorable moments in sports history. Yet Tiger repeatedly said that no one in the world knew him better than his father, the man he frequently referred to as his best friend and hero. He will have the power to impact nations. He is the Chosen One, Earl told the magazine. He was notorious for making outlandish statements, like the time he predicted in Sports Illustrated that his then twenty-year-old son would have more influence on the world than Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, or Buddha. A Green Beret who served two tours in Vietnam, Earl achieved worldwide acclaim for his almost mythical role in raising the most famous golfer of all time. He was seventy-four years old and had been in failing health, his body weakened by cancer and his longtime affection for alcohol and cigarettes. Lieutenant Colonel Earl Dennison Woods died of a heart attack at his home in Cypress, California, on May 3, 2006. I’m calling on behalf of Tiger Woods, the woman told Mohler. Then Mohler heard a male voice in the background say: Just tell him who he’s burying. She assured Mohler that the deceased had a burial plot. I need to know who I’m burying to even know if they have a plot here, he said. The state had required him to sign documents promising confidentiality when he became a sexton seventeen years earlier. Mohler told her that wouldn’t be necessary. I can’t do that unless you sign confidentiality papers, she said. Well, I can’t help you if you won’t give me a name, he told her. What’s the name of the deceased? he asked. Especially one made to his home at such a late hour. We have a burial coming your way, she said.Īn odd way to begin a call, thought Mohler. It was about nine p.m., and the caller didn’t identify herself. The night before, Mohler had been home watching television when his phone rang. Hardly anyone knew the burial was happening, and Mohler aimed to keep it that way. In twenty-four hours, the ashen remains of the city’s most famous son would be laid to rest there. Clump by clump, the balding forty-four-year-old sexton meticulously dug a grave, piling the dirt beside it. It was Friday, May 5, 2006, and warm temperatures had softened the earth at Sunset Cemetery in Manhattan, Kansas. Standing between two gravestones, Mike Mohler drove a posthole digger deep into the dirt, twisting it like a corkscrew. To Dede, my amazing wife, who endured, inspired, believed-and, best of all, loved. Tiger Woods, by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, Simon & Schuster CONTENTS Cover: Tiger Woods, by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
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