Eldrick No Longer Exists

by Mulligan Stu on Aug 7, 2007 5:12 PM EDT

I stumbled across a bit of info today that surprised me, and I'm wondering if it surprises others, too, or if I just haven't been paying attention.

I was reading a mailbag with Peter Kostis on CBSSportsline. Some doofus wrote in and suggested that the announcers should stop calling Tiger "Tiger" because that's an intimidating name and Woods gains an advantage from it. He should be called by his real name, Eldrick, the emailer wrote.

Kostis replied:

Whoa, John, you have serious issues! Take a deep breath! Either that, or start breathing into a paper bag! First off, Tiger changed his name legally several years ago. Eldrick no long exists. So, we're not doing anything incorrect by calling him by his real first name, which is Tiger.

I didn't know that Tiger had legally changed his name to "Tiger." Did you? Turns out the change took place way back in December of 1996. Maybe I read about it then, but if so I'd long since forgotten.