After decades of wondering if we’d ever see “a next Nicklaus,” we now try
to envision the improbability of someone coming along who is more talented than Tiger Woods. In the process of winning four consecutive major
championships in 2000–2001, Woods proved himself as golf’s most dominant player ever, something Jack Nicklaus himself implied.
200 Golf’s Greatest Eighteen
*John Strawn is author of the bestseller Driving the Green.
**Jeff Rude is a senior writer for Golfweek.
It has come to this: Woods won five PGA Tour titles in 2001—something only one other man has done the last twenty-one years—and was
considered by many to have had an off year, punctuated by so-called slumps
at start and finish.
At his professional rate of winning 1.2 majors a year, this freakish blend
of power and touch would win seventeen more Grand Slam titles by the
time he turned forty in December 2015, giving him a total of twenty-three.
And given he bagged five of six majors during a stretch in 1999–2001, that
total might be low. Moreover, if he continues to win five tournaments
annually, his total will hit ninety-nine by age forty.
In sum, his potential and attributes are scary. He’s the longest and best
driver among the game’s elite, a major reason he has led the PGA Tour in
par-five birdie percentage in each of his first five full seasons. In his threemajor 2000 he had what might have been the best putting year ever. And
in 2001 he not only won his third consecutive Vardon Trophy but led the
Tour in scrambling, saving par 69.8 percent of the time he missed greens
in regulation. Oh, and did we mention he’s physically and mentally
stronger than any of his contemporaries? If he were more focused, he’d be
in a trance.
So what’s he missing? Nothing, except more staggering numbers to be
compiled over the next two decades.
Across All Barriers—Jeff Shain*
Beyond his dominance inside the ropes, Tiger Woods redefined golf’s status in the eye of the sports public. No longer the domain largely of rich
white guys, galleries and TV audiences took on a younger, more diverse
look.
“He’s getting the nongolf world involved with golf. The game is cool to
play,” said Tom Watson, winner of eight major championships. At a time
of declining TV sports viewership almost across the board, Woods’s presence allowed golf to buck the trend. Ratings for PGA Tour telecasts rose
11 percent in 2000, when he won the year’s final three majors, and 7 percent again the following season.
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*Jeff Shain is golf writer for the Miami Herald.
“A lot of people are watching golf that never watched the game before
in their lives,” said Charlie DeLucca, longtime director of Miami’s Dade
Amateur Golf Association.
Woods’s charisma cut across age and racial barriers, granting him acceptance from both the country-club set and the hip-hop generation.
“There’s no ring in his nose, no ring in his ear, no gold in his mouth,”
said Renny Roker, whose Teens on the Green minorities golf program went
from three cities to twenty-eight in its first year. “He’s an athlete that not
only has pride and dignity, but ethics and a way about him.”
Passing Every Test—Lorne Rubenstein*
Tiger Woods is powerful. Tiger Woods can hit the ball miles. Tiger Woods
holes putts seemingly at will. But the most impressive thing about Tiger
Woods is that he has, so far anyway, come up with an excellence beyond
excellence when that has been required. He looks forward to the supreme
moments when a golfer is most tested, then passes the test. Surpasses it.
Think of this choice moment that occurred during the 2000 NEC Invitational at the Firestone Club in Akron, Ohio. Woods had a 256-yard shot
on the par-five, 625-yard sixteenth hole. The hole is meant to play driver,
lay-up second, and short iron in. Woods set up over the ball with an iron;
a television announcer said that he was laying up short of the water in front
of the green. But Woods ripped at a two-iron, nearly coming off his feet at
the end. His shot soared over the water, the flag, and just over the green.
Woods got up and down for birdie and went on to win by eleven shots.
More than any golfer, Woods conveys the possibility of creating a
moment when he makes an unforgettable shot. It’s so rewarding to watch
Woods because of the tension that golf, a slow game, generates while one
waits for what could be an explosive moment. By explosive one need not
mean loud. Think of Woods at the back-of-the-island seventeenth green
during the 2001 Players Championship in Sawgrass, Florida. This was during the third round, when Woods was trying to make a run at Jerry Kelly,
then the leader. His tee shot nearly went into the water behind the green
but settled. He had a sixty-footer.
202 Golf’s Greatest Eighteen
*Lorne Rubenstein is a golf writer, TV broadcaster, and author of A Season in Dornoch.
Woods made his stroke. The ball crept down the fast green, picked up
speed, took this break and that break, then fell into the hole. Woods, of
course, won the tournament.
Or think of the six-iron that Woods hit from a fairway bunker on the
last hole of the 2000 Canadian Open. He had some 216 yards to the hole,
across a lake. He was a shot ahead of Grant Waite, with whom he was playing. Waite was on the green in two and looked certain of making a birdie.
Woods, over the ball. Woods, taking the club back. Woods, maintaining
his balance. Woods, coming through impact, the ball tearing away, high
and easily over the water, and now, over the flag. He made birdie. He won
the tournament. He’d created another memorable moment. There is a deep
pleasure in watching Woods. It consists of watching him construct an edifice of memorable, timely shots. He has made so many. And, surely, he will
make many more.
Inside the Ropes with Tiger—Tom Auclair
In 1995 seventy-nine year-old Bob Robertson went the Scottish Open at
Carnoustie, where he’s a long-standing member. Entering the clubhouse
he noticed a young man sitting quietly at a table.
“I saw this wee lad, who I didn’t even think was a golfer, sitting alone,”
recalled Robertson. “I didn’t know why he was there. There are very few
black people in Carnoustie, fewer still on the Scottish circuit,” Robertson
said. “I was surprised to see this youngish, boyish-looking person perhaps
left alone, perhaps because of his color. Some people call me a compulsive
talker, and I guess that’s what led me to go over and offer to buy him a coffee.” The young man declined the offer but gave Robertson a wide smile.
The smile made a huge impact on Robertson. “He gave you the impression of being sort of a loner, but when he smiled, he changed completely.”
At Royal Lytham and St. Annes, July 2001, Robertson was stunned by
the similarity between that chance encounter six years earlier at Carnoustie
and another young man, one about to collect his first major championship
trophy, the Open Championship. “When he took off those glasses and his
hat, smiled, and gave that speech, he changed completely,” Robertson marveled, watching along with the world as David Duval shed his shades and
opened his heart to the public. When Robertson introduced himself to that
Above and Beyond • Tiger Woods 203
“wee dark laddie” a few years earlier, there was no way of telling he was
speaking to someone who would become one of the greatest players the
game has ever seen. He had no idea that player was Tiger Woods, he said,
and even if he had, it wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference.
“It was his first effort in our country, where very few people would have
been conscious of his potential,” Robertson reflected. It even took him a
while to figure out that Tiger was actually a competitor in the Scottish
Open. Now Robinson often chats with his grandchildren about his meeting Tiger that day, a story they enjoy. He also has a very strong opinion of
the man Tiger has become. “I think he’s a great player,” he said. “I was saying to my wife, ‘He carries himself very well. He’s very sensible, not bigheaded. I like people who can take success and not show signs of being
blown up by it. He appears to be what my wife, Mary, likes to call a gentleman and handles himself in a gentlemanly fashion.”
The clubhouse where Robertson met Tiger has since been demolished.
In a twist of irony, so has Tiger’s anonymity.
In light of the superlatives that have been lavished on Eldrich “Tiger”
Woods, it is sometimes difficult to comprehend what he has been able to
accomplish by his midtwenties. The world has seen great athletes, but how
many of these have totally dominated their respective sports as intensely
as Woods? Cassius Clay was a talented boxer, but for a long time he was
the only person to consider himself the greatest. Michael Jordan may have
been destined for greatness at twenty-five but had a long journey still in
front of him before realizing it. A goodly number of players have been
labeled and promoted as destined for greatness. A much lesser few have
ever realized it.
In a game dominated by history and tradition, Woods has lifted himself to a zone of rarefied air. His success has reached such enormous proportions that searching for the right words to properly describe his
numerous victories has also become a daunting task. In 1930 Bobby Jones
won a clean sweep of the four major championships—the U.S. and British
Opens, the U.S. and British Amateurs—a clean sweep his biographer and
friend, Grantland Rice, would later come to term uniquely the Impregnable Quadrilateral. In time this would be simplified to the Grand Slam.
When Tiger won the 2001 Masters, becoming the only player ever to hold
all four professional major championships at the same time, most agreed
204 Golf’s Greatest Eighteen
it wasn’t the Grand Slam. It was, however, the grandest slam modern-day
followers of the game have ever seen.
In May of 2001, Woods repeated as champion of the Memorial Tournament, his third consecutive win, an event close to the prestige of any
major, at Jack Nicklaus’s own course and his very own PGA Tour event.
The “Golden Bear,” just a year earlier dubbed the “Golfer of the Twentieth Century,” had the highest praise for Woods. “Name anybody who isn’t
amazed by what he has accomplished,” Nicklaus said after Tiger’s latest conquest. “Week after week, he just keeps continuing and continuing to do
more.” Woods effectively clinched the title early in Sunday’s final round
with a majestic eagle-three, his perfectly judged 247-yard two-iron across
a lake coming to rest just six feet from the flagstick.
“He knew where he was and what position he was in, and the tournament was his to win at that point,” Nicklaus added. “He had to make the
shot to turn the thing around, and he made it. And he’s been able to make
that shot with a fair amount of regularity over the last few years. So not too
much amazes me anymore, but it’s still amazing.”
When the 2001 Memorial Tournament was over and the postwin press
conference was complete, a journalist and his son did an interview with
Woods as he was surrounded by security and accompanied by another
player through the media workroom, to and up an elevator, down a short
passageway, and finally into a reception. While the journalist and his working son returned to their work area in the pressroom, the father asked, “Do
you realize what just happened?”
“Well, for starters,” said the cub reporter, “I just rode in an elevator with
my dad, and two golfing legends.” That was true, the veteran told his son,
but the symbolism was what most struck the father. While he was conducting his interview with Woods, arguably the greatest player the game
has ever seen, another icon of the trade was standing, hands joined to each
other, quietly to the back of the elevator. He wasn’t speaking. He wasn’t
being interviewed. He was going along for the ride up the elevator nestled
into the back right-hand corner. Alone. That other passenger was Jack
Nicklaus.
Woods’s career is significantly different from that of his predecessors.
While golf’s greats honed their crafts for loyal followers around the world,
none of them ever had to play their best while at the same time living in
Above and Beyond • Tiger Woods 205
a realm usually reserved for rock stars. Such is the daily routine for Woods
although his playing ability is definitely not bigger than the game, as suggested by Hal Sutton at the 2000 Players Championship. At the time Sutton, who went on to beat Tiger in a head-to-head battle, was concerned
that the media had built Woods’s image to a level that might suggest he
was bigger than the game. But in truth by defeating Woods all Sutton
did was reconfirm the truism that golf is an imperfect game. No matter
how good an individual player is, no matter the press clippings that follow him, no matter what he has accomplished in the weeks and months
leading up to an event, in golf, practically any player can win in any given
week. Sometimes a player just hits better, crisper shots, or breaks don’t go
for one player or another, and the unexpected victor emerges. Therein
lies the true beauty and what makes golf the greatest game in the world.
There are no standings; no prior records help seeding. “Tee ’em up Thursday and add ’em up when you finish on Sunday afternoon. If yours is
the lowest number, you win.” And if you are fortunate enough to do so,
enjoy it. It doesn’t happen very often. Not in golf. Not for anyone. Except
Woods, who has been able to win an amazing percentage of starts compared to the great men who have played the game before him.
To call Tiger Woods a sporting superstar is an understatement. He is an
internationally famous athlete, yes, but his star quality, as Ernie Els commented after losing in a play-off to Woods at Kapalua at the start of the
2000 season, “is bigger than Elvis.” That perspective helps us understand
what Woods needs deal with every day, even the days he goes on to serve
up some of the greatest performances in the history of the game. Woods
cannot practice in anonymity. Woods cannot do anything in anonymity.
While walking through a crowd of autograph seekers and engaging Woods
in an interview, a journalist got jammed in the crowd, which was held at
bay by security and ropes at both sides of the pair. In the madness Woods
accidentally stepped on the journalist’s foot. He stopped in the middle of
the frenzy to ask if the scribe was hurt. Amid the hype and tension Tiger
showed yet another aspect of his rich personality. He cares.
At the Western Open in July 2001, the final pairing of the third day’s
play, Davis Love III and Brandel Chamblee approached the first tee. At
the same moment as they prepared to tee off, Tiger was across a practice
green and standing on the tenth tee. He had just finished an uncomfort206 Golf’s Greatest Eighteen
able run of eagle, double-bogey, birdie, double-bogey, birdie. He had
slipped from minus five through the fifth hole to minus three. Tiger had
double-bogeyed twice in three holes. At this point Love and Chamblee,
two of the game’s true gentlemen, led the world’s top player by eight and
five, respectively. It made little difference. The fans still wanted to watch
Woods. A small polite gathering followed the tournament leaders; a gallery
of at least twenty times that size followed back-marker Tiger. Such is the
appeal of Woods. No matter how compelling the story is regarding the
leaders, the story of a tournament that has Tiger in the field is always Tiger.
That, of course, is good and bad. For the widespread appeal of the game
it’s great. For the new people brought to the game it’s wonderful. For the
increased purses players now vie for it’s rewarding. But for those in the
hunt on a Saturday afternoon it can be lonely. For those playing with and
around Tiger it can be distracting. For all those players who have tremendous stories to tell as they weave their way to victory, it somehow means
less when Tiger plays.
That said, you’d be hard-pressed to find many who would complain
about Tiger and what he means to the Tour. Paul Azinger commented on
Tiger’s appeal following a round at the 2000 World Golf Championships–NEC Invitational by saying “He needs more protection. I mean
it. I’m going to call Commissioner Finchem and tell him this guy needs
more protection.” Protection. Only ten letters, but they carry so much
weight. The weight they carry is synonymous with the weight Tiger carries
everywhere he goes.
Protection. Something Tiger has earned. Protection. Something we
should all be willing to give. Tiger lives in a world no one else knows. He
can almost never move freely around a golf course; he has demands for
interviews, appearances, autographs, and much more than any human
could ever handle in an entire lifetime. And his demands are all for now.
Do this interview now, sign this autograph now, do that now, satisfy this
sponsor now. Now, now, now! It is amazing he does what he does.
For those who play with Tiger for the first time it can be quite an adventure. Such as when Joel Edwards, who had won for the first time in his
career the week before at the 2001 Air Canada Championship, received
immediate benefit playing with Tiger for the first two rounds the following week in the Canadian Open. Edwards admitted he felt like he had been
Above and Beyond • Tiger Woods 207
thrown into the deep end of the pool. Local security didn’t make him feel
much better when he approached the tenth tee. They stopped him and told
him he couldn’t go there. He showed his player badge, it made no difference, and he had to sneak under the ropes to hit first, as he had the honors. He shot 74. Edwards said later if he had to deal with a lifestyle and
demands similar to Tiger Woods’ he would simply go back home and sell
golf balls. He would want no part of such a grueling lifestyle.
During that round Edwards told Tiger he had a friend named Strick
who wasn’t a fan. He just didn’t like Tiger. He didn’t know him, but he
didn’t like him. Admitting his sense of humor might seem a little weird,
Edwards asked Tiger to sign something for Strick, something that indicated
he was a friend of Strick. On the Canadian Open program, which had his
picture on it as the defending champion, Tiger wrote: “To Strick, Thanks
for all the wonderful support over the years!! Your friend, Tiger Woods.”
Tiger’s not afraid to have fun, even if it means being part of the joke.
Eldrich “Tiger” Woods is a perfectionist in an imperfect game. He is a
superstar on a plane all by himself. He has a smile that could light a room
and talent that goes beyond description. He is a young man performing
astonishingly well on a world stage that wants to gobble him up. And
through it all he still manages to win at an amazing pace. He wins and he
loses, all with the same intensity and graciousness, destined to become the
greatest of all time.
When he won his third straight World Golf Championships–NEC Invitational in August of 2001, Tiger went past the $25 million mark in career
earnings. He was asked if he had imagined his victories would come as frequently as they had in his first five years as a professional. “I never really
looked at it that way,” Tiger said. “I looked at it, first of all, getting on the
Tour. That was the main objective in ’96. From there, keep myself out here
with a few victories and by winning the Masters, ten-year exemption, the
grandfather clause. Then I had a place to play. From there what I really
wanted to do was give myself a lot of chances to win. That’s what all the
great players in the history of our sport have done. They don’t win every
time, but at least they are there. If you put yourself there enough times, the
victories will happen. I’m proud of the way I’ve been able to do that so far.
I’ve put myself there quite a few times, and I’ve won my share, but I’ve been
beat a few times, too; that’s going to be part of the game.”
208 Golf’s Greatest Eighteen
Such is the level that he is judged, it seems amazing that one single mind
can manage it all. Early in the 2001 season people spoke of a Tiger slump.
His line for the first five starts of the year read: T8 at Mercedes, T5 at
Phoenix, T13 at Pebble, fourth at Buick Invitational, and T13 at the Los
Angeles Open. He may not have appreciated the talk of slump, but it didn’t
hurt his game as he won his next three starts at the Bay Hill Invitational,
the Players Championship, and the Masters. Following his three-in-a-row
at the Memorial, five top-thirty finishes rekindled the slump talk. Tiger
then won the NEC Invitational, also for the third consecutive time. He
continues to tweak his game, believing in his heart he can improve. He
doesn’t rest on past accomplishments. That may well be his greatest attribute and ultimately his greatest gift to the game.
