Tiger Woods Meets With A Fan Battling Cancer, With Help Of Social Media
Tiger Woods took some time out of his extremely busy Masters Week schedule to meet with a fan battling cancer after the fan got some help from social media, Yahoo News is reporting.
Jordan Miller knew that securing an audience with the golfer would be a long shot – or a long Par 5, to use golfing terminology. But her stepfather, Shane Caldwell, is currently in Stage IV lung cancer. He’s always wanted to meet Tiger, but considering his diagnosis, the number of opportunities he has to do so may be getting smaller by the day.
Enter this week’s Masters Tournament. Caldwell lives in South Carolina, not too awfully far from Augusta National, the site of the tournament. A friend was able to score two tickets to Thursday’s round, and Miller figured, what the heck, she might as well ask.
“What are the chances these two are going to be in the same place at the same time again? It was such a crazy idea that I decided to go for it, and I started harassing people until I got my way.”
These days, if you have a great idea and want it to get traction, push it on social media. Miller took that approach, at first publishing an appeal of Facebook.
“My hope is that if we get enough attention from the right people, we may be able to surprise Shane with the opportunity to meet the golfer he idolizes. There aren’t enough words in the world to describe what it would mean to him or our family to make his dream come true.”
That failed, for reasons perhaps best left to speculation (Yahoo Sports writer Jay Busbee thinks it’s because of Facebook’s complex and hoary algorithms, which limit who sees which posts). Over on Twitter, where every post is a free-for-all unless the user specifies otherwise, Miller had more luck.
PLEASE RETWEET!! I need help making my step dads dream of meeting @TigerWoods come true. He has stage 4 lung cancer and is very sick. This would mean the absolute world to him. Please help me make this happen for him???????? pic.twitter.com/m7xRCi5NKr
— Jordan Miller (@jordsierra27) April 1, 2018
Long story short, Miller’s appeal made its way to Tiger Woods. It’s possible that her story resonated with the golfer, who lost his own father to cancer.
On Thursday, Miller – and Caldwell’s – dreams came true. It wasn’t much of a meeting, but considering that it’s the middle of one of the most major golfing events of the year, even taking the time to shake a fan’s hand and give him some memorabilia is more than most fans are ever likely to get. And that’s exactly what Tiger did – shook Shane’s hand, and gave him his gloves, which he’d signed.
“Stay strong!! Tiger Woods”
Thanks to a determined stepdaughter, Shane Caldwell met Tiger Woods at the Masters and had a brief reprieve from the stage 4 lung cancer he is battling at the Duke Cancer Center. #masters @jordsierra27 https://t.co/alKb7WSg96 pic.twitter.com/WyPBZK3o3q
— Augusta.com (@AUG_Masters) April 5, 2018
Unfortunately for Tiger Woods, while he’s been kind to fans this tournament, the Masters has not been particularly kind to him this time around. As of this writing, Tiger is not in the top 100 players competing in the tournament.
