On Friday, golf’s top draw dedicated his Tiger Woods Learning Center in Anaheim, California. Built next to the city-operated public golf course he grew up playing (Dad Miller Golf Course), the sprawling 14-acre complex is all about education – not golf. Woods says he thought of the idea just after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrrorist attacks, when he had a few days to himself that he obviously didn’t expect. On a long drive to his home in Florida (planes were grounded, remember?), Tiger had this conversation with himself:

Hitting golf shots, and being a circus that comes through one week and gone the next wasn’t giving kids something they could touch and call their own. I thought, ‘We need to build a learning center, not to develop golf shots but to develop minds, to teach kids how to build a career and chase a dream.’

The Learning Center has been open since last month. It’s available to school kids (4th-12th grades) for after-school activities. It has 2,000 computers (wow!), a recording studio, and even its own forensics classroom. It’s truly a big deal. The dedication was attended by former President Clinton, California First Lady Maria Shriver, and a host of community, state, and national leaders from all walks of life.

Tiger said that his mother, Kultida, had one rule not open to discussion: No golf until his homework was done. We should all have had mothers like her!