For decades, he existed beyond comparison. As he turns 50, even golf’s most dominant figure confronts the one opponent he could never overpower
Talk to any golfer who played against Tiger Woods and there is sure to be at least one story about one shot so sublime they were certain it could not be hit by them or anyone else.
The 2-iron Woods hit into the par-5 10th hole at the TPC Sugarloaf led Stewart Cink to say, “This is a skill set I don’t have.” Padraig Harrington once saw Woods hit an 8-iron so majestic at Firestone that it got in his head and led to the Irishman making triple bogey.
Nick Price played the opening two rounds with Woods at St Andrews in the 2000 British Open and felt the tournament already was over. Mark O’Meara played a practice round with him at Pebble Beach before the 2000 US Open and told his wife before the championship started, “Tiger is going to win. And not only is he going to win, he’s going to blow away the field.” Woods won by 15.
For all those years, so many greats in the game could never relate to Woods. And now, finally, they can.
It’s a milestone for anyone, but it’s different in golf because the sport can be played well after the age when athletes have long retired in other sports. Phil Mickelson won a major at 50. Jack Nicklaus made an early Sunday charge at the Masters when he was 58.
He now is eligible for the 50-and-older PGA Tour Champions. He also has had more surgeries than the 15 majors he won. This is the first year he didn’t play a single tournament, the result of a ruptured achilles tendon in March and a seventh back surgery in September.
“I’m probably going to play 25 events on both tours and I think that should cover most of the year, right?” Woods quipped in the Bahamas when asked about turning 50.
He won the US Open just eight days before reconstructive surgery on his left knee. He won the Masters two years after surgery to fuse his lower back. But he hasn’t been the same since that 2021 car crash in Los Angeles. Woods has played 11 times the last five seasons, finished only four of those tournaments and hasn’t been closer than 16 shots to the winner.
“Come back to what point?” Woods said. “I’d like to come back to just playing golf again.”
And so this celebration is more about looking back than forward.
Ernie Els was most prescient in 2000 at Kapalua when he was on the losing end again – no one finished second to Woods more than the Big Easy. They matched eagles on the 18th in regulation, birdies on the 18th in a playoff and Woods got him with a 40-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole. Vintage Tiger.
“I think he’s a legend in the making,” Els said that day. “He’s 24. He’s probably going to be bigger than Elvis when he gets into his 40s.”
That’s up for debate, of course. Undeniable is the impact Woods has left on golf.
Popularity soared and prize money skyrocketed. Woods made golf look different and he made it cool. And perhaps his greatest legacy is he unwittingly trained a generation of players who wanted to be like him. Scottie Scheffler said nothing inspired him more than watching the intensity of Woods when he was out of contention at the 2020 Masters. Woods made a 10 on the 12th hole and followed with five birdies over his last six holes. He tied for 38th.
“Tiger was just different in the way he approached each shot. It was like the last shot he was ever going to hit,” Scheffler said. It was the only time they played together. Scheffler now is coming up on three years at No 1 in the world, the longest stretch since Woods.
But it started with that skill set unlike any other.
“He’s the only guy I’ve ever known who continually exceeded expectations,” Tom Lehman said. “No matter how much you heaped on him, he found a way to exceed them.”
Lehman recalls one moment at the Memorial on the 17th hole, a green so rock-hard it felt impossible to get it close. Lehman hit 5-iron as high and far as he could and was pleased to see it roll out 25 feet from the cup.
“He hits this shot way up in the air and it was coming down like a parachute,” Lehman said. “Lands by the cup and bounces 2 feet and stops. I figure he must have hit a 7-iron. I said, ‘Tiger, what club was that?’ He said, ‘That was a little, three-finger 5-iron.’ He just filleted it in there.
“When I think of him, that’s what I think of. Only one guy could hit that shot. And he did it often.”
