Tiger Woods explains daughter Sam's name
In a press conference for the AT&T National earlier today, golfer Tiger Woods explained the meaning behind Sam Alexis, his 2-week-old daughter’s name. As many expected, it does tie-in with his late father.
We wanted to have a name that would be meaningful to either side of thefamily, my side or Elin‘s side, because she was born [the day after]Father’s Day. It just happened to fit. My father hadalways called me Sam since the day I was born. He rarely ever called meTiger. I would ask him, ‘Why don’t you ever call me Tiger?’ He says,’Well, you look more like a Sam."
Tiger also described the stressful weekend preceding Sam’s birth — Elin was hospitalized in Orlando on Thursday, June 14th while Tiger was playing in the US Open.
It wasn’t life-threatening or anything, but shejust had a few problems and had to be admitted. It wasn’teasy. It was not easy, because I wanted to be there. And the doctor andElin said, ‘There’s nothing you can do. So go out there and just get a ‘W.’ Well, came close. But that night was infinitely more rewarding than any ‘W’ ever could have been.
I flew, landed in Orlando, went straight to the hospital and next thing you know, we have Sam Alexis in our arms [in the early morning hours of Monday, June 18th].
Tiger spoke about his newfound fatherhood, saying,
It’s just time management and understanding where your priorities are,and our priorities are Sam. That’s the one priority. Andfrom there, you work it out from there. It’s been fantastic these last couple weeks to have Sam Alexis as partof our life. It was a dream come true for both Elin andmyself. I’ve been changing diapers and doing feedings. I definitelydon’t sleep now.
I think Elin and I talked about it on our first night, ‘How can you love something so much that didn’t exist theday before?’ We never experienced anything like that. That was special and something that we want to experience again.
And he’s starting her off early — Sam has already held a golf club, albeit in her own way.
[I put a golf club in her hand.] She couldn’t quite hold it. But it was there. [smiles]
