Tiger Woods comes through with supportive letter to bullied teen

Tiger Woods, thanks to LPGA Tour golfer Sophie Gustafson, recently reached out to help a teenager who had been bullied and tried to commit suicide because of a stuttering problem.

Gustafson, who has publicly waged a years-long battle with her own stuttering, has taken a high school boy named Dillon under her wing because his speech issue made him the target of harassment and bullying at school.

By Gustafson’s accounts, the teen had been doing somewhat better and played for a short while on the football team — until the taunting about his stuttering became so severe he quit and recently attempted suicide. At that point, Gustafson contacted her friend, Golf Digest’s Ron Sirak (who had written a heart-rending story about Gustafson’s mentoring of Dillon), to share a letter she received from Dillon’s mother.

“He continues to love to watch golf and is still a fan of Tiger,” wrote Dillon’s mom. “Is there anyway we could get his story to Tiger and see if he could help find something encouraging for [him] to look forward to?”

Sirak promised to do what he could to alert Woods. The father of two kids, and the 14-time major champion — without any of the fanfare that usually accompanies his every action — wrote to Dillon. Gustafson was elated, as Ryan Ballengee shared on Sunday.

Sirak released Tiger’s very sweet letter on Tuesday. In it, Woods shared with Dillon that, as someone who also stuttered as a child and “the only minority” in junior competitions, he knew “what it’s like to be different and sometimes not fit in.”