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Woods' streak ends at six
Posted: Monday February 14, 2000 10:30 AM
The weekend golfers sitting around a table at a Los Angeles country club were watching the big screen and talking about Tiger. It was Sunday afternoon. There was one more round to play in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am, and Tiger Woods wasn't even on the first screen of the televised leaderboard. He was so many shots back that he didn't seem to matter. The big names on the board were Singh and Lehman. A rookie named Gogel and a newcomer named Begay were also in the hunt. Woods? He was in the sand. "He's done," said one of the golfers. "The streak's over at five." "Not so fast," said another. "If he puts up some numbers tomorrow, he's got a chance." Believers. That is what Tiger Woods made all of us. He turned the improbable, even the impossible, into the inevitable. Again and again and four-more-times again. So, when Woods pitched in from 97-yards for an eagle two on 15 at Pebble -- and pulled within two shots of the lead with three holes to play -- the only person who really looked surprised was Tiger, himself. "I'm back in it," he said to a camera. Fact is that he was never out of it. Not at the Firestone Country Club, where he carded Win No. 1, nor at Walt Disney World, site of Win No. 2, nor at the Champions Golf Club, where he won the third-in-a-row, let alone at Valderrama, scene of Win No. 4, nor at Kapalua, where he won No. 5 -- and certainly not at Pebble Beach, where he came from behind for No. 6. The streak even ended in a Tiger-esque quality -- he rallied from six strokes down to tie Phil Mickelson with six holes remaining at the Buick Invitational. But Woods simply ran out of miracles, at least on that day. Not since Ben Hogan won six in a row more than half a century ago, in 1948, had there ever been a string of victories like this in the game of golf. Only Byron Nelson put together a longer streak, winning 11 tournaments three years earlier.
Will Woods one day win 11 straight tournaments? Well, let's just say we won't count him out.
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