Tiger Woods’s college girlfriend: He deserves another chance
By Liz McNeil, PEOPLE.com
March 9, 2010 6:09 p.m. EST
Tiger Woods’ ex from Stanford says that Woods is a “good person” and will bounce back.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Tiger Woods’ ex-girlfriend Irene Folstrom said despite his acts, Woods is a good person
She said she dated Woods in undergrad at Stanford and split when he left school
She said recent adversity will serve to make Woods better in the long run
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(PEOPLE.com) — Tiger Woods has apologized for repeatedly cheating on his wife — and he’s getting some support from an old flame who believes the golfer can be redeemed.
“I support him 100 percent,” said Irene Folstrom, who said she dated Woods in the mid-1990s when they were undergrads at Stanford University. “Of course, he was unfaithful and he has his faults, but he is really a good person.”
Folstrom, 35, who lives in northern Minnesota, hasn’t spoken to the golfer in more than 10 years, but says she has kept up with mutual college pals who report that Woods is focused on winning back wife Elin Nordegren.
“He is willing to do whatever it takes to salvage his marriage and his reputation and his professional life,” said Folstrom. “He is focusing on his family, his marriage and his children.”
Maintaining that the golfer was faithful to her when they dated, Folstrom said she was taken aback when she heard of his multiple affairs.
“It was a complete surprise because the Tiger I know would never have done anything like this,” she said. “He has so much self-control and is so disciplined. When he married Elin, I thought he would settle down … I don’t know where it fell apart.”
Awkward and Dorky
By Folstrom’s account, Woods was anything but a ladies’ man back in college. “He definitely was a dork,” she recalled with a laugh. “He was kinda scrawny and wore thick glasses. He didn’t really have a lot of female attention.”
But he did exhibit the focus that has made him a champion. “He had an immense amount of self-control,” she says. Often, she says, he’d be up at 6:30 a.m., hitting balls before class. “He was never a party animal, never reckless,” she said. “He was always very guarded of himself and his friends. He kept his circle very tight and that’s the way it is right now.”
She said the two stopped dating when Woods left Stanford at the end of his sophomore year in 1996 to turn pro. Folstrom finished her studies and later moved back to northern Minnesota, near the Ojibwe Indian reservation where she grew up.
Though she is dismayed by Woods’s behavior in his personal life, she predicts that the determination she saw in him during their college days will be in full display once he returns to the golf course.
“This will only make him stronger,” she said. “He is an ironman. He gets through adversity. Those other players, they better watch out.”