The ceremony came exactly three weeks after Woods won the 2019 Masters at age 43, a comeback Trump had praised by phone from Air Force One the very next morning. Woods stood in a navy suit beside the president as Trump called him "a global symbol of American excellence, devotion and drive," recounting the fourteen years between major championships that included multiple back surgeries and a period when Woods could barely walk without pain. Melania Trump joined her husband on the dais for photographs once the medal was fastened, and the Woods family gathered close for the moment cameras had waited all evening to capture. Woods' mother, Kultida, sat in the front row along with his eleven-year-old daughter Sam Alexis and ten-year-old son Charlie Axel, while girlfriend Erica Herman and longtime caddie Joe LaCava looked on from nearby seats. Woods' voice caught as he thanked the crowd, telling them plainly that they had seen the good and the bad, the highs and the lows, and that he would not be standing there without their help. He paused to speak of his late father, Earl, whose military duffel bag and dog tags had once traveled with Woods to every tournament as a private good luck ritual. Senator Mitt Romney, Eric Trump, and Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan sat among the Rose Garden guests as the White House lawn filled with the scent of spring hedges and camera flashes. Jack Nicklaus, whose record of eighteen majors Woods has chased his entire career, posted his congratulations online within minutes of the ceremony ending. The medal itself, a five-pointed gold star suspended from a blue ribbon, now rests among Woods' most guarded possessions, a physical marker of the night golf's greatest comeback story became a matter of American record.
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