Tiger Woods broke up with his first girlfriend, high school sweetheart Dina Parr, in the most cold-hearted way, with a cold-hearted letter.
Parr was one of the subjects interviewed for the HBO documentary on Woods, “Tiger,” that was released earlier this year. The documentary was very well done and explores much of the background that went into building Tiger into a golf prodigy.
Woods was raised by his parents to become a golfing machine and the greatest golfer ever. That meant he would have no time for distractions or problems, such as a serious girlfriend.
In the documentary, Parr, who was Dina Gravell at the time, told the story of her relationship with Tiger. She also shared how and why she believes their relationship ended.
“Earl and Tida (Tiger’s parents), they had this image of who he was supposed to be. And I think they were worried about me, because I certainly didn’t fit in to that,” Parr said in the documentary.
“I felt like their plans were creating this robot. There was all this preparation for golf, which is great. You’re going to be a great golfer. But he had no life skills. He had not been prepared for life,” Parr said of Tiger. “And I was probably the only person around him that really kept him in check. And I would tell him, ‘you are going to want to get married and have kids and golf is not going to be the most important thing. You are going to have to find that balance.’
“He would say, ‘I’m in love with you. I want that. I just want to have a life with you.'”
So what were the circumstances that led to the breakup? It all started with a lie.
Tiger and Dina met in an accounting class when they were in high school. Their relationship lasted for three years but ended after Woods returned home from college and lied to his parents.
According to longtime family friend Joe Grohman, who was a teaching pro at the Navy golf course where Woods practiced, Tiger lied about coming home from college. Tiger told his parents he was coming home from college the next day. But he actually had arrived the day before and stayed at Parr’s house.
When they found out about the lie, Woods’ parents were furious with their son. Tiger was scared and unsure what to do, so he called Grohman, the golf teacher recalled.
Grohman recalled that he went over to the house and was shocked at how angry Woods’ parents were. He recalled Tida dropping g-d damns all over the place. Earl Woods was furious too.
“We don’t need this. She’s going to get pregnant and blow this whole thing!” Grohman recalls Earl said.
They were so mad that they were ready to kick Tiger out of the house, according to Grohman. Tiger was “spooked” by the incident, according to Grohman.
So what happened next? Tiger wrote Dina a letter breaking up with her.
Here is what the letter said, according to Parr:
“Dina, the reason for writing this letter is to inform you my parents and myself never want to talk or hear from you again. Reflecting back over this relationship, I feel used and manipulated by you and your family. I hope the rest of your life runs well for you. I know this is sudden and a surprise. But it is, in my opinion, much warranted.
Sincerely,
Tiger”
Parr then shared her thoughts on the letter.
“It was awful. We had been in this three-year relationship. And I thought about, should I drive over there? I just wanted to confront him. I just wanted him to look me in the face and tell me this. If it’s the truth, then we’re good. Then our relationship was a whole lie. That’s fine. But I want to hear it from you,” Parr said.
“I replay that day in my head over and over again. What happened? What really triggered all this? But it has to be that it was just the plan.”
What likely happened is Woods’ parents forced him to break up with her to focus on golf, and he did.
Parr, who just had seen a 3-year relationship end over a letter and received no closure, says she had to treat it like a death.
“It was like a death. And I had to treat it like a death, because I had to just let it go and pretend like he was gone. Because, honestly, the person that I fell in love with, the Tiger that I had known, had died. That part of him, that part of his soul that I knew, would never treat me that way. His sweetness was stolen from him. The new Tiger was here … and he was all about golf.”
Parr described Tiger in the documentary as a sweet guy who would let his hair down when he was with her. But Woods’ parents decided there would be no room for that in his life and seemingly forced him to cut it off with her.
This all happened well before Tiger’s infamous sex scandal that began in 2009. Woods got married in 2004, but the marriage unraveled after his ex-wife discovered he was cheating on her. That set off a scandal where numerous women came out and said they had sexual relationships with the golfer, all while he was married.
Also in the documentary, we learned of Tiger’s final message to his most well-known mistress, Rachel Uchitel.
