Before Tiger Woods teed off in Thursday’s opening round at the Masters, he walked over to the bleachers for an exchange with a man who was sitting with Woods’s girlfriend, Erica Herman. Woods chatted briefly with the man and handed him a signed glove. It’s rare for Woods to divert from his pre-round routine, but this was for a good reason.
Yahoo Sports reports that the man, Shane Caldwell, is a longtime fan of both golf and Woods. He’s also battling stage four lung cancer. “He’s a hardcore fighter,” stepdaughter Jordan Miller said. “He does not let anything get him down.” Thanks to tickets acquired by family friends, Caldwell checked a major item off his bucket list: attending the Masters. But Miller wanted the experience to be even more memorable.
She began a campaign on social media to try to get Woods’s attention. A Facebook post didn’t garner much, but when she turned to Twitter her posts started gaining traction. Miller’s strategy was partly volume-based; she fired out more than 500 tweets, tagging anyone from Woods himself to the PGA Tour to GOLF.com in efforts to reach the 14-time major champion. Eventually, they reached Herman.
Miller was told to make sure Caldwell would be on the driving range Thursday morning between 9:10 and 9:15, although he still didn’t know the meeting was on. But Woods came over to shake Caldwell’s hand and give him the glove, which was signed with a message: “Stay strong!! Tiger Woods.”