Innholdsfortegnelse for SIP 2021 - Tiger Woods i Golf Digest

A prediction: Tiger Woods will receive the $8 million first-place award of the inaugural Player Impact Program. At year end, the disbursements for the nine other players will be finalized, all part of the PGA Tour’s response to the still speculative golden lures of a world “super league.” It shall be neither ironic nor surprising when the runaway winner is the guy who didn’t strike a competitive shot in 2021, owing of course, to back surgery in January followed by the car crash in February. As much as Phil thrilled, Rahm rammed, and Bryson and Brooksy bickered, Tiger still contributes more to golf’s global awareness. Video of his putt from 2008 got more airtime than any other shot from Torrey Pines this year. Google search and Q-rating? That’s a lot…

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article appeared in Golf World immediately after the 1997 Masters. Author John Hawkins completed it in a rental home two miles from Augusta National just hours after the final putt. The piece won that year’s Golf Writers Association of America firstplace award for Best News Story. THERE WAS NO DEFINING MOMENT. There was no miracle comeback, no Incident at Amen Corner, no particular golf shot of historical resonance. There weren’t even any azaleas. Spring arrived too early this year at Augusta National, tiptoeing around the 61st Masters as if to force this sacred tournament to produce its own colorful backdrop. Mother Nature’s ultimatum. Father Time’s ultimate accomplishment. That’s what made it so unforgettable. Color. The dark complexion of a young man’s skin against his sport’s lily-white landscape, a…

IN 110-DEGREE HEAT, SURROUNDED by a rocky moonscape in the California desert, the contrast between them never looked so stark. Not only are their ages of 62 and 26 numerical flips, but a 6-iron for one was a 9-iron for the other. They were thick and thin, light and dark, old and young, open and closed, heartland and Pacific Rim, Teutonic and Cablinasian, laboring and lithe. Partners at the made-for-TV “Battle at Bighorn,” Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods looked more like the shaky premise for a buddy sitcom than the two most compared athletes from the past and present in the history of sports. But in the still, silent moments on each tee, the differences fell away. As one addressed the ball, the other turned his legendary focus to every…

THE WEEK BEFORE THE 2008 U.S. Open, it was difficult for Woods to hit more than two practice shots without having to sit down. Still, he was steadfast about playing at Torrey Pines, the site of his Junior World and Buick Invitational victories. “I’d never seen him talk about a tournament so much before it started than he did about Torrey Pines,” says caddie Steve Williams. Woods also talked when he got there, buoying himself by repeating two self-fashioned declarations. The first was to Dr. Keith Kleven, who was charged with managing Woods’ increasing pain. “It was probably the toughest week I’ve ever had in any sport, and the most relieved I’ve ever felt about anything when it was finally over,” says Kleven, who was in heavyweight champion Larry Holmes’…

YES, AS HE HAD DONE IN HALCYON DAYS when he owned the world, Tiger smoothed along when it mattered most. He let the lesser players find ways to damage themselves. This time, on holes 11 through 17, Woods went par-par-birdie-par-birdie-birdie-par and, when it no longer mattered, a bogey at the 18th where, after the last little putt, he allowed himself, for the first time all day, a moment of celebration. He threw high and wide his arms to the thousands of fans, jubilant and raucous, the air ringing with “Tiger! Tiger!” Coming off the green, he embraced his mother, Tida, and his children, Sam and Charlie, before moving through a handshake line of players celebrating their old hero reborn: Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas, Bubba Watson, Mike Weir, Zach Johnson. Six…

We marvel at Tiger Woods’ abilities. Even at 11 he was contemplating issues specific to professionals many times his age. His 1987 entry in Golf Digest’s inaugural Armchair Architect contest, conceived by our Architecture Editor Emeritus Ron Whitten, reveals a preternatural understanding of how tour players process challenges, and it previewed the way he and the pros after him would attack golf holes through new levels of power and soaring trajectories. The U-shape par 5 he envisioned, with a towering escarpment blocking the route between tee and green, forcing play through a gauntlet of punitive hazards, could be interpreted as an early psychological experiment for how Tiger would defend courses against himself: This is the only way I might be stopped. Though clearly an abstraction, the hole isn’t entirely out…

Golf Digest started covering him in 1981, when Tiger was 5 years old and weighed the equivalent of a tour golf bag. Our next encounter was when he entered the magazine’s Armchair Architect Contest at age 11 (see page 84). In 1990, we ranked Tiger as America’s third-best junior amateur, and Jaime Diaz profiled him at 14. It was then we got to know his father, Earl, as a delegate to the National Minority Golf Symposium, sponsored by Golf Digest and the USGA, and on the basis of that friendship we built an alliance that has now lasted three decades. Tiger made his first cover appearance in November 1994 as a model for an instruction story on power, and he got his second two years later when he turned pro:…

EDITOR’S NOTE: Although there is no world ranking of sports writers, a considerable chunk of Jaime Diaz’s time at the top coincided with Tiger Woods’ respective reign. Once a year for Golf Digest, Diaz—who was awarded the 2012 PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism—applied his historical perspective and precise style to assessing “The State of Tiger.” These large features were typically informed by one-on-one interviews with the man himself, in addition to a wide range of reputable sources throughout the game. What follows are selected passages. To read them is to relive the suspense of Tiger’s accelerating achievements without the spoil of hindsight.…

FOR THE LEGIONS CONDITIONED TO believe that Tiger Woods was invincible, 2004 was as surreal as the 81 he shot at Muirfield to end his 2002 Grand Slam bid and start his ongoing 0-for-10 streak in majors. On the heels of a relatively disappointing 2003, the numbers that had always substantiated Woods as the game’s best player no longer added up: • Woods was supplanted by Vijay Singh as the No. 1 player in the world (and even was briefly passed by Ernie Els for No. 2). • He had his worst year in the majors (with his best finish a tie for ninth in the Open Championship). • Woods tied career lows for full-season victory totals (one) and position on the money list (fourth). • He hit new depths…

WOODS’ OLD MYSTIQUE—THAT OF the chilly Chosen One immune to human weakness—is gone. It might well be that his former domination or even his competitive desire goes with it. Still, he has a chance to attain something more human. When he re-emerges, Woods will have truly suffered. Not knee-injury suffering, not even loss-of-father suffering. Rather the kind of suffering those heroes who have ruined their charmed lives confront at the climax of Shakespearean tragedy. Just as it isn’t an overstatement to see the fallen Woods in such a context, so it is difficult to understate the potential scale of his redemption. Through all his folly, Woods has made passing Nicklaus’ major record an even greater feat than it would have been without it. Because the ultimate measure of a man…

Winning the Masters by 12 shots in 1997 wasn’t validating enough. A still-impressionable Tiger Woods couldn’t shake the feeling that he gripped the golf club too damn tightly, and Ben Crenshaw wasn’t helping matters. This was Woods’ Champions Dinner, the year after his seismic victory, and the host was riveted as his guests compared grips on butter knives. Nicklaus showed his. Crenshaw’s demonstration was so tender that the utensil practically drooped out of his hands. He encouraged Woods to abandon his death clench. You need to let the club flow, to release it through impact. He wasn’t the first to convey that to Woods, and hearing it from an all-timer worsened a lingering case of Grip Insecurity. That is, until another all-timer chimed in. Byron Nelson, age 86 and 53…

“Assuming Tiger continues on his current track, the money will be monumental. He’ll be wealthy as soon as he turns pro. The guaranteed endorsements and appearance money will make him the equivalent of a No. 1 pick in an NBA or NFL draft. But is he also going to be a great player? Truly, there is no way of knowing. The best teenage golfers do not automatically dominate the sport as adults. Golf is not tennis.”—FRANK HANNIGAN, 1993 “Tiger probably has the talent to reach his longterm goal of being the best ever, if his health and motivation hold up: two monumental ifs.”—NICKS EITZ, 1996 “He’s not going to burn out because Tiger plays for his own joy and passion.”—JAY BRUNZA, 1996 “Tiger is going to be the leading golfer…

TIGER WOODS MIGHT DISAGREE, but his performance at the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach stands as the greatest golf ever played. Though the objective evidence seems irrefutable—72 holes in a championship-record 12 under par and a 15-stroke margin of victory that is the record for any major championship—it’s the subjective impressions that best make the case. When Woods sliced through heavy rough with a 7-iron on Pebble Beach’s par-5 sixth hole with enough force and precision to send his second shot 210 yards over the edge of Stillwater Cove and onto the green during Friday’s round, Roger Maltbie’s early but accurate call—“It’s not a fair fight”—perfectly captured the palpable sense that the proceedings would be more coronation than competition. Woods arrived at the U.S. Open on Sunday night, staying…

TIGER WOODS—LIVING ICON—IS back. He had stood on that narrowest of pinnacles back in 2000 and 2001 before slipping off for a few years in pursuit of technical perfection. But by finishing 2006 with a rush toward the epic landmarks of Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson while rising ever higher above his contemporaries, Woods enters 2007 loaded for history. He carries a streak of six straight official victories—the second time he has achieved the second-longest tour string of wins—but this time with a more palpable sense that Nelson’s 11 straight is attainable. Only tennis’ Roger Federer among athletes today can rival Woods in dominating and personifying his sport. But whereas Federer confessed he became nervous when Woods showed up last September to watch him in the final of…

SO MANY KEY INDICATORS suggest his career might be over: three recent back surgeries/procedures, recurring chip yips, scores in the 80s, WDs, the quiet desperation in a muttered “C’mon, Tiger” before hitting a third straight pitch shot into the water. In the history of golf, no great player who has fallen from the top for this long has ever returned to dominance. No dominant player has ever dropped so far as quickly—from a record 683 weeks at World No. 1 (for periods from June 1997 to May 2014) to No. 683 in August 2016—as Tiger Woods. The shock is still being absorbed. If the Woods era has truly ended, it will have happened at an age younger than any all-time player since Bobby Jones. Woods won his 14th major in…

Editor’s note: From 1996 when he turned professional to 2005, Tiger Woods won 46 of his 82 PGA Tour victories and 10 of his 15 major championships. We went back into our archives to cull his thoughts on how he executed various shots during that 10-year span—from bombs off the tee to delicate shots from the fringe. This era was “Prime Tiger,” and how he played the game during that period is timeless advice for average golfers. His abilities might have seemed superhuman, but his thoughts on executing shots were as simple as they were effective. In this article, Golf Digest has selected some of his most useful tips from previous issues to appreciate from a historical sense—and use the next time you try to channel your inner Tiger!…

From the time Tiger Woods won his first Masters in 1997 the vulnerability of Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 professional major championships has been a popular golf debate. Injuries, surgeries and scandals, however, shifted the conversation to a more attainable goal for Tiger: Sam Snead’s mark of 82 career PGA Tour titles. Woods’ win at the 2019 Masters ended a decade-plus drought in the game’s biggest events, but another record came into focus in the aftermath because Major No. 15 for Tiger was also PGA Tour title No. 81. Much like a baseball team’s star player chasing 3,000 hits, the PGA Tour launched a “Chasing 82” marketing campaign until Woods tied Snead’s record with a win at the 2019 Zozo Championship. But Tiger should have already broken the mark, and…

’92 Golf Digest’s longtime relationship with Tiger Woods has provided the unique opportunity to capture his driver swing with a high-speed camera several times during the last 29 years. Here we’ve selected three for your viewing pleasure—one from his teenage days, one from his peak years, and one taken right before his comeback that culminated with a win in the 2019 Masters. Over the years his coaches have changed, his swing has changed and certainly his body has changed, but what these three sequences prove is that fluidity, coordination and athleticism have always been hallmarks to his action. Starting with this one he ripped off the tee for us as a 16-year-old in 1992 near his childhood home in Cypress, Calif., you can see he relied more on flexibility to…