Elin Maria Pernilla Nordegren (Swedish pronunciation: ; born January 1, 1980) is a Swedish model, and is the ex-wife of professional golfer Tiger Woods.
Nordegren was born in Stockholm, Sweden. Her mother, Barbro Holmberg, is a politician and the former Swedish migration and asylum policy minister, and the former Governor of Gävleborg County. Her father, Thomas Nordegren, is a radio journalist who served as a bureau chief in Washington, D.C. She has an older brother, Axel, and a twin sister, Josefin. Nordegren and her sister worked odd summer jobs and as cashiers in supermarkets to finance their studies. She started modeling in 2000, and appeared on the cover of Cafe Sport magazine in the summer of 2000.
Nordegren took a job in a Stockholm clothing store called Champagne, where she met Mia Parnevik, wife of Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik, who hired Nordegren as the nanny to their children, a job that required her to move full-time to the U.S. He introduced her to Woods during the 2001 Open Championship. After Woods' subsequent infidelity was revealed, Parnevik was quoted as having said, "I'm kind of filled with sorrow for Elin since me and my wife are at fault for hooking her up with him, and we probably thought he was a better guy than he is." Previously, Woods had asked for a year to be introduced to Nordegren, who was seeing someone else at the time. "She had no interest in Tiger and he was OK with that," Mia Parnevik said. "There was a big line of single golfers wanting to meet her. They were gaga over her." She had hopes at the time of becoming a child psychiatrist. In November 2003, Woods and Nordegren attended the Presidents Cup tournament in South Africa and became officially engaged when Woods proposed at the luxury Shamwari Game Reserve.