As we are all (sometimes painfully) aware, once Halloween ends, the holidays officially begin. Light-up Santa and his plastic reindeer are trotted out for another trip around the globe. Christmas songs blare from every department store loudspeaker. Frozen turkeys become society’s most valuable barter commodity and Best Buy greeters leapfrog Navy SEALs on the list of the world’s most dangerous jobs.
Most normies will spend the season watching football and squabbling with in-laws, but how do golf’s greatest legends celebrate the most wonderful time of the year? Despite their private jets and God-given ability to launch a 5-iron 250 yards, when it comes to the holidays, they’re Just Like Us™.
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In the December 2000 issue of Golf Digest, we asked the PGA Tour’s top pros and their families to share some of their favorite holiday traditions and memories. Their stories were as endearing as they were surprising. For instance, Amy Mickelson shed some light on her husband’s Christmas obsession, which clangs with his leather-jacket-wearing “man-in-black” persona today.
“Amy Mickelson describes her husband as a Christmas fanatic,” Golf Digest wrote. “The tree and outdoor lights go up Nov. 1, and during the final two months of the year, only holiday tunes are allowed at home and in the car. There’s an annual shopping excursion to New York, a sleep-under-the-tree night before they depart for Phil’s hometown of San Diego, then a Christmas-morning flight to see Amy’s family in Utah.”
Mike Ehrmann
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Earl Woods also shared a telling story about Tiger’s first Christmas, just five days before his first birthday.
“His first Christmas was when he was almost a year old,” Woods told Golf Digest. “We got him a putter, and he was so excited, he didn’t fool with any of his other presents at all. He dragged that putter all over the place. The following year, he did his first interview, and Jim Hill asked him what he wanted for Christmas. He said he wanted a 2-iron, ‘because that’s what Daddy hits.’”
Whether or not that putter was a Scotty Cameron remains unknown.
For more holiday hi-jinks from the PGA Tour’s former stars—including the Lehman family’s failed holiday excursion to Disney World and the Christmas gift to Phil that Amy Mickelson called “a very expensive mistake”—enjoy the rest of the ‘Holiday treats’ in the Golf Digest archive.
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
