"Her reaction was, 'What the hell was that?'" a friend of Elin's told Sports Illustrated. "She thought it was so weird and pathetic." That she didn't immediately swoon for one of the world's most recognizable athletes says a lot.
Nordegren, who first met Woods in 2001 while working as a nanny to Jesper Parvenik's kids, had no use for fame or golfers, and thought the sport was silly. But Woods wouldn't give up, and they had formed a tight bond before the occasion of their $1.5 million Caribbean wedding in late '04. Elin, a twin, is a former swimsuit model, but she is anything but flashy. One observer calls her the "Greta Garbo" of the tour wives. She wears dark Nike clothes and cap on the course, and when asked one time if she'd ever run onto the green to kiss her husband after a victory, she replied, "Oh, no, never."
Elin's divorced parents are hard-charging professionals. Her mother, Barboro Holmberg, is a Minister of Migration in the Swedish government, and her dad, Thomas Nordegren, is a Swedish Broadcasting journalist based in Washington, D.C. And though she will never have to work a day in her life, Elin, 26, enrolled this fall at private Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. She pushed Tiger to ski for the first time and learn Swedish, and he's taught her to scuba dive and dabble in golf.
"Without a doubt it helps having a partner there," Woods has said. "We're like a team. It makes you stronger." Says Mia Parnevik: "With the weird lifestyle he leads, he might never have met a nice girl. He's lucky he found Elin. Can you imagine how empty his life was before she came along, just hitting golf balls all day?"
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