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Golf's Greatest Years - Tiger Woods
Three major titles in 2000
Posted: Saturday March 31, 2001 10:32 PM
Updated: Tuesday March 26, 2002 6:25 PM
At the end of the 2000 PGA Tour season in Atlanta, the players were weary of talking about you-know-who.
``Since I got here, all I've done is answer questions about Tiger,'' Loren Roberts said last fall at the Tour Championship. ``I'm not going to answer any more.''
Who could blame him? Woods was the talk of the tour last year, starting with his West Coast victories at the Mercedes Championships and the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and ending with his not-so-subtle demand for respect from PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem.
In between, Woods produced a magical summer where he won the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship and etched his name on the scoring records of all three.
When the year was done, Woods had set or matched a staggering 25 records. His raw scoring average of 68.17 bettered the old mark set by Nelson more than 50 years earlier. In his nine victories, he amassed more than $9 million in earnings. From the first round of the Byron Nelson Classic through the end of the year, he played 47 straight rounds in par or better. (He tacked on five more rounds to the record this season before a 73 in the second round at the Phoenix Open ended the streak.)
And, through it all, he showed he had a sense of humor.
``Not bad,'' he replied when asked to summarize his year.
Even if Woods and some players are reluctant to gush over his accomplishments, a lot of his peers are not.
``I thought it was impossible to do what Tiger did (in 2000),'' said Jesper Parnevik. ``If you won twice (in a year), it used to be a great year.''
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| Tiger Woods |
Age : 24
Victories : 9
- Mercedes Championships
- AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am
- Bay Hill Invitational
- Memorial Tournament
- U.S. Open
- British Open
- PGA Championship
- World Golf Championships - NEC Invitational
- Bell Canadian Open
Earnings : $9,188,321
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The biggest disappointment came in Augusta, where Woods shot a 75 in the opening round at the Masters. It would be the only round that Woods would play over par in a major.
Woods made the cut with an even-par 72, then finished strong with rounds of 68 and 69. It wasn't enough to overtake Vijay Singh.
``In hindsight, I've looked at Augusta as a woulda-coulda-shoulda kind of thing,'' said Woods, who made a double bogey and a triple bogey on the back nine in the first round.
If anything, it made his resolve for the rest of the year even stronger.
``When he gets that look in his eye, you know something big's going to happen,'' said Golfweb.com's Hauser. ``He's had it since the spring, after the Masters.''
Indeed he did. After a convincing victory at the Memorial Tournament, Woods set his sights on completing the career Grand Slam. To do so he would have to win the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and the British Open at St. Andrews.
At Pebble Beach, nobody else in the 156-man field really stood a chance. Woods was playing against history, and his 15-stroke triumph set a record for largest margin of victory in a major. He also shattered the U.S. Open mark for scoring in relation to par, 12-under for the 72 holes, and equaled the four-day total of 272.
At St. Andrews, Woods put together four rounds in the 60s at golf's birthplace. His 19-under total was a record for golf's oldest championship, and his eight-stroke margin of victory set another record.
``He's playing so well. He's not getting sucked into who he's beating,'' said Nick Price, who won two majors and five other events in 1994. ``He's destroying golf courses.''
Fittingly, Jack Nicklaus was making his final appearance at St. Andrews in the British Open. The man with the most victories in professional majors (18) gave way to the youngest man to win the career Grand Slam. The passing of the torch was complete.
``This guy's got something that even Jack doesn't have,'' said Hauser. ``The guy's 24 years old and we've run out of words to describe him.''
Woods, though, wasn't quite finished. In August, he arrived in Louisville for the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club and a chance to become the first golfer since Hogan to win three majors in a year.
Unheralded Bob May pushed Woods to the limit at Valhalla, a four-hole playoff to decide the year's last major after the two had tied at the end of 72 holes.
Woods seemed to relish the challenge. After swapping birdies with May on the last nine holes of regulation, Woods birdied the first hole of the playoff for what proved to be the winning margin. Once again, he had established a record in relation to par. Along with his record-setting triumph in the 1997 Masters, Woods now holds the scoring record for all four majors.
The wins gave Woods his own version of the Triple Crown, and golf's first since Hogan in 1953.
After winning three straight majors, Woods still had an encore. A week after the PGA, he came out blazing at the NEC Invitational at Firestone in Akron, Ohio. Opening rounds of 64 and 61 set a PGA Tour record for low first 36 holes (since tied by Mark Calcavecchia at this year's Phoenix Open), and virtually decided the tournament.
Two weeks later, at the Canadian Open, Woods continued to impress. Closing rounds of 65, 64 and 65 - not to mention a 218-yard 6-iron from the bunker on the final hole over water - gave him a trifecta of a different sort. It made him the first golfer since Lee Trevino in 1971 to win the national titles of the United States, Great Britain and Canada in the same year.
Woods ascended to golf's throne through hard work and a revamped swing. After he set the 72-hole record at the Masters with his victory in 1997, he wasn't satisfied with his swing. The resulting overhaul paid off in 1999, when Woods won eight times and added his second professional major at the PGA Championship.
He still relishes the fact that he was able to abandon his old swing and make it better.
``I have kind of done it step by step, hit the ball well on the range, go out and play it at home, test it out, prove to myself that it works in a tournament,'' Woods said. ``And to see the results after all the hard work, that to me is extremely satisfying.''
Woods produced a dazzling array of shots along the way, leaving even veteran observers grasping for words.
Which was best? Try the 97-yard pitching wedge shot he holed in the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am? The 168-yard 8-iron out of deep rough on the 18th hole at Firestone? Or the shot on the final hole at the Canadian Open?
For Woods, it came at St. Andrews in the second round on the 14th hole with a 3-wood.
``Pin is all the way in the back left (about 265 yards away) and wind is coming about, I don't know, about 5 to 10 miles and hour off the left slightly into my face, and I had to rip a 3-wood and I absolutely made a perfect golf swing for me,'' Woods said.
The shot set up a 40-foot eagle putt that Woods narrowly missed.
Woods' quest for excellence impresses even the game's greats.
``Hard to say it's the greatest year ever. It would be a difficult year for him to improve upon,'' said Byron Nelson. ``And it was a great year. I'll say this about the young man, he works on his efforts. He works on his game all the time. He told me, `I've still got to get better on some shots.' That shows the right attitude.''
With the benefit of playing with superior equipment, competing on immaculate courses and having his own jet at his disposal for travel, Woods' advantage over Jones, Nelson and Hogan is considerable. But the equalizers might be that today's tournaments boast much deeper fields, and with success comes constant demands on his time and talents.
``Everyone would say that the field is much stronger than it was then,'' said Parnevik. ``I wasn't there then, but I've got to assume they are.''
Woods agrees.
``I think you just take a look at the winning scores from week to week,'' he said. ``Look how much lower they are over the past 10 years versus what they used to be. The players are just getting better. The fields are getting deeper. If you look at this year, I don't think I have ever seen so many 63s and 64s week-in and week-out. There are a lot of them.
``That just goes to show you the guys are getting better. Not from just the top players, but everybody who is competing out here. Everyone is getting just a little bit better.''
Outside of winning the Masters, the only thing Woods didn't achieve was reaching double-digit victories. If he had reached 10, he would have been the first player since Sam Snead in 1950 to turn the trick.
``If I don't accomplish the 10 wins, then obviously that will be disappointing because I was close to doing it,'' Woods said after the Tour Championship. ``But the fact that I won three majors in one year is not a bad thing either.''
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