A look back at Tiger Woods’ dating history

Celebrities

By Joshua Rhett Miller, Kirsten Fleming and Sarah Nathan

March 11, 2023 | 10:00 am

Welcome to Tiger Woods Exes Support Group.

Woods’ former lover Rachel Uchitel invited the golfer’s latest ex, Erica Herman, 37, to be a guest on her Miss Understood podcast, which launches Tuesday on Apple and Spotify.

“Thanks to Tiger Woods, we both get to sit in silence for 30 minutes,” Uchitel told The Post exclusively.

After all, the pair signed non-disclosure agreements with the golf great — Uchitel in 2009 and Hermann in 2017.

That document is now the subject of legal controversy for Herman, who sparked a firestorm yesterday when his lawyers tried to toss his, citing the law that allows such NDAs to be voided if there is evidence of sexual harassment or assault.

“I think everyone wants to know who he is, right?” Listen, I think it’s very interesting what’s going on. I wonder why he is doing this in public. I have a lot of questions for him,” Uchitel said, adding that Herman is “up against Goliath.”

Not that anyone knew Woods and Herman’s nearly six-year relationship was over until documents revealed a nasty battle had been going on since October 2022.

Herman, who met the notoriously private athlete at a restaurant in Jupiter, Florida, claimed in his lawsuit that his former beau “tricked” him out of his home.

He alleged that people working for him convinced him to “pack a suitcase for a short vacation and when he arrived at the airport, he was told that he had been evicted from his residence in violation of the verbal lease agreement and Florida law,” the lawsuit states.

Herman also claimed the staff removed his personal belongings and took $40,000 in cash that belonged to him, according to the lawsuit.

Curt Sampson, author of two books about Tiger Woods, said: “He probably said [people who work for him], ‘Hey, there’s this problem, can you fix it?’ So superficial and heartless to me.”

(Woods’ longtime agent, Mark Steinberg, did not return messages seeking comment.)

Sampson, who wrote the 2019 film “Roaring Back: The Fall and Rise of Tiger Woods,” said Herman’s accusations reflected the coldness Woods embodied when he broke up with his high school sweetheart.

In 1994, when the golf phenom enrolled at Stanford University, he ended his three-year romance with Dina Gravell-Parr in a letter.

“He said, ‘My parents are really worried that you’re a big troublemaker and I have to listen to them. We have to break up,” Gravell-Parr told The Post in 2009. “I felt like I was punched in the gut.”

Sampson said: “I think Tiger is quite a flawed person when it comes to relationships. Maybe that’s just a consequence of him being so damn good and so committed to his game.”

Herman’s shocking announcement felt deja-vu again for the golf great, whose colorful and stormy love life has often overshadowed his career over the past 14 years.

Woods’ love story included a scandalous divorce, widespread infidelity, an affair with an A-list sports partner and a car romp with a Perkins waitress, to name just a few memorable moments.

He also reportedly used NDAs with at least three women.

While this latest battle with Herman doesn’t set a solid foundation for a friendship, Woods has managed to remain friends with some of his exes, even calling ex-wife Elin Nordegren “one of my best friends.” Which is a far cry from how they ended things.

When Woods met the 21-year-old Swedish bombshell at the 2001 British Open, he was golf’s golden boy — a generational talent who transformed the game. She worked as a nanny for the family of Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik, who introduced them.

According to his friend Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, Nordegren was initially reluctant to get involved with the athlete.

“He had an opinion about celebrities and he wasn’t tall. And he’s very shy, so the idea of ​​joining that world didn’t appeal to him,” Sobieraj Westfall said in the 2021 HBO documentary “Tiger.”

“And when he asked her out, I think she turned him down at first,” Westfall recalled. “He gradually became convinced that he had to give her a chance, and so they went out.”

They married in 2004 and had two children, Charli and Sam.

But on Thanksgiving Day 2009, their lives ended for good after Nordegren discovered that Woods was cheating on her with former Las Vegas housewife Uchitel.

Woods was at the height of his career when an enraged Nordegren reportedly chased him out of their house with his own golf club and smashed the windows of his car, which he then crashed into a tree.

It was a huge downfall for the golfer who had made millions of dollars playing golf and received millions in endorsements. He recently won the Masters in Australia and was photographed meeting former President Barack Obama at the White House that same year.

This fraudulent revelation was just the thread that unraveled the reputation of a seemingly perfect family man.

Other ladies came forward, and Woods reportedly slept with 120 women during his marriage.

One of them was Mindy Lawton, a Perkins waitress who allegedly had an affair with Woods in his SUV.

The golfer and Nordegren divorced in 2010 — Nordegren is believed to have received $100 million in the settlement — and entered rehab. He has since publicly regretted offending her.

In 2015, she told Time Magazine that her relationship with Nordegren was stronger than ever.

“When it comes down to it, it’s just a more open, honest relationship with my ex-wife when we were married,” Woods said.

But his shame remained. In his 2017 book, Unparalleled, the Masters and I, he admitted: “My regret will last a lifetime.”

Woods appeared to be on the road to restoring his career and reputation when he began dating gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn around 2012.

They were equals and equals: two world-class athletes who helped define their respective sports and surpassed them.

They first appeared on the red carpet at the Met Gala in 2013, and a source told Page Six that Nordegren “loves Lindsey and thinks she’s a really good influence on Tiger.”

However, the power couple split in 2015, with both blaming busy training schedules that took them to different parts of the world.

Two years later, after Woods was arrested for a DUI, Vonn told Extra that she reached out to him after his DUI arrest and they remained friendly — a sentiment she doubled down on in 2018.

“I loved her and we’re still friends,” Vonn told Sports Illustrated.

But she indicated that there were more nuances to their breakup: “Sometimes I wish he would have listened to me more, but he’s very stubborn and likes to go his own way.”

In 2015, Woods went to stylist Kristin Smith.

Their two-year relationship reportedly exploded after Smith suspected the golfer of cheating on her. TMZ reported that she signed an NDA and tried to void it, but Woods allegedly threatened to post indecent photos of her.

Sampson suggested that Woods’ sly coldness may not be limited to women.

“Maybe it’s about how he sees everyone, every other person — and not just women,” Sampson said. “From the cradle, Tiger was told, ‘You are you and your mission’… Everything and everyone else is a distraction or non-vital.

After Smith, Woods quickly transitioned to Herman, and the pair appeared together at the Presidents Cup in September 2017. To outsiders, the Florida native looked like Woods’ foundational force.

While the couple were dating, he was back in the storybook – winning the Masters in 2019.

They were regularly photographed with her children, and she remained a low-key character for the tour, perhaps because she signed an NDA.

“There are people who get involved with celebrities… They sign an NDA beforehand, which is what Erica did. That’s what he signed,” Uchitel told the Daily Mail.

He added that his own NDA was created after he witnessed an incident and agreed to “not talk about any behavior or incident to engage in a cover-up so to speak … I signed an NDA to cover up bad behavior.”

If Herman can’t dine in public on Uchitel’s new podcast, the host is happy to give him private advice.

“If you want to talk about this scenario privately, my door is always open. Because I know that publicly, it’s very, very difficult to deal with.”

As for Woods’ string of failed relationships, Uchitel said, “A tiger doesn’t change its stripes.”