Tracking Tiger Woods: The Back Story
The 10-year saga of pain and missed opportunities
The last decade has seen a preponderance of interest in the whereabouts of Tiger Woods as it relates to his playing and practice schedule. Much of it stems from his own mysterious aversion to announcing his plans as well as the various injuries that have occurred which have led to speculation about whether or not he could compete.
Here we are at that stage again.
Woods, we think, will be at Augusta National for the Masters next week. He’s listed in the field. He’s not said no. But he’s also not said anything since withdrawing from the Genesis Invitational in February due to illness. That was his first tournament of 2024. It was also his last, aborted after just 24 holes.
A hopeful sign emerged on Saturday when it was learned that Woods was at Augusta National, ostensibly on a scouting mission. That’s good new for folks who want to see Woods compete in the Masters for the 26th time and attempt to set a record for consecutive cuts made at 24. He played with chairman Fred Ridley and his buddy Justin Thomas.
That is far better news than what dropped on this very day 10 years ago. The initial reaction was one of disbelief. This was a prank, right? No way Tiger is missing the Masters. Given the fact that the news broke on April 1, 2014, there was plenty of reason to wonder if this was simply a bad April Fool’s Day gag.
It was no joke. Nor have been the past 10 years for Woods.
Back then, we scrambled to learn about the world “microdiscectomy.’’ Now we can spell it without looking up the back procedure that Woods first had performed on March 31, 2014, and announced a day later via his social media accounts.
“After attempting to get ready for the Masters and failing to make the necessary progress, I decided, in consultation with my doctors, to have this procedure done,’’ Woods said.
And so began a decade-long odyssey of injuries that included four-and-a-half missed Masters (we withdrew in the third round last year). At the time, the microdiscectomy was portrayed as a minor procedure to eliminate lower disk pain. Woods had started having back troubles at the PGA Championship in 2013. He withdrew during the final round of the Honda Classic in 2014 and struggled the following week in the WGC event at Doral, where he shot a third-round 66 before fading.
That would end up being his last tournament before returning three months later in June – which probably turned out to be too soon. He finished far back at the Open Championship, withdrew during the final round of the WGC at Firestone, then missed the cut a week later at the PGA Championship.
For the first time in 20 years, Woods was missing the Masters in 2014. He’d also miss the U.S. Open at Pinehurst and go through four years of on-again off-again misery. Prior to 2014, Woods had only skipped four majors – the Open and PGA after knee surgery in 2008 and both Opens in 2011 while recovering from leg injuries sustained during the Masters.
In 2013 before the back issues started, Woods was No. 1 in the world, having won five times including the Players Championship and two World Golf Championship events. He wouldn’t win again until 2018.
Along the way, he had two more microdiscectomies along with the spinal fusion surgery in April of 2017 that set the stage for a dramatic comeback and a 2019 Masters victory.
Over the past 10 years, Tiger has . . .
*Played in just 73 official worldwide tournaments
*Withdrawn seven times
*Missed 12 cuts
*Posted 16 top-10s
*Played in just 21 of 39 major championships
*And celebrated three tournament victories, including the 2019 Masters.
The Sweetest Victory
Five year's on, Tiger's 2019 Masters triumph still resonates
Chapter 14 excerpt from Bob Harig’s book “Drive: The Lasting Legacy of Tiger Woods”
The win in Atlanta might have been the ultimate career capper, if that was the way Tiger Woods wanted to play it. The scene at East Lake, with all of the spectators flooding to the green as he walked those final steps toward victory, was as fitting as those ticker-tape parades bestowed upon the great amateur Bobby Jones, whose photos adorned the walls at the old club, the place where Jones grew up and where Woods now made history.
It was an eightieth PGA Tour victory, and capped a remarkable comeback from spinal fusion surgery that could have ended his career. That Woods was playing golf at a high level and competing spoke to his never-ending grit and determination.
Woods, exhausted, joined his American teammates on a charter flight that night to Paris, where they would get waxed at the Ryder Cup. Woods went 0–4, losing a Sunday singles match to Jon Rahm, a star in the making. Woods quite clearly was tanked, the toll of a long year and an emotional victory too much to over- come.
Remarkably, Woods played eighteen times through the Tour Championship, a number beyond the wildest of any dreams. There were years during his prime that he barely touched that many
events. Just getting through them was remarkable in itself. To post nine top-12 finishes, including a victory, and contending at two majors is the kind of stuff that random tour players dream about. Woods put so much into winning the Tour Championship that there was nothing left in France. Partnerships with Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau required them to carry him, and they were unable to do so; leaning on Woods that week was a mistake, and the U.S. paid dearly. Its two most accomplished stars—Woods and Phil Mickelson—went a combined 0–6. And facing Rahm,
Woods simply was going up against a determined player who was coming into his own.
Woods, afterward, was clearly spent. In a greenside interview, he talked almost incoherently, perhaps due to medication he took for his back, which undoubtedly was killing him. Woods would never let on that he was hurting, but clearly the toll of the FedEx Cup playoffs, winning at East Lake, the long trek to France, and the subsequent activities associated with the Ryder Cup were enough. He needed a rest.
Two months passed before the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, Woods’ tournament that benefits his foundation. He finished 17th out of eighteen players, nineteen shots behind winner Rahm. Nobody cared. There was nothing to prove this time.
Woods had won a tournament earlier that year, and the glow was still apparent. This time, there was no sense in agonizing over every swing, every hole, every round. He had hosting duties for his foundation, and playing good golf in December might have been mildly of interest, but hardly a priority this time. The Masters was four months away.
But the focus after the holidays would be on Augusta National — just like the old days.
The truth is that Woods had not gone to the Masters with a realistic chance to win since 2013, the year of his infamous drop on the 15th hole that led to a two-stroke penalty and eventually a tie for fourth, four strokes behind Adam Scott.
He missed the tournament for the first time in 2014 due to his first microdiscectomy; took nine weeks off prior to the 2015 tournament due to back and chipping woes; didn’t play in 2016 and 2017; and was making just his sixth official start after spinal fusion surgery in 2018.
But the Tour Championship victory in September of 2018 provided a big boost of confidence, even though the Masters was still well into the future. The way he battled against some of the game’s best, including Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose, and Rory McIlroy, is often overlooked in the telling of that story. None of them would have feared Woods at that point, and yet he outperformed them head-to- head and overall.
Crowds swarm East Lake as Tiger Woods won 2018 Tour Championship / Chris Condon, PGA Tour via Getty Images
Serious preparation didn’t begin until January, and Woods had a nice run of tournaments at the Farmers Insurance Open (tied for 20), Genesis Invitational (T15), WGC-Mexico Championship (T10), Players Championship (T30) and WGC Match Play (T5). No missed cuts, a good mixture of courses and competition, and some head-to-head golf at the Match Play to really get focused. One of those Match Play victories was over McIlroy.
The downside is that in those five tournaments, Woods never finished closer than eight shots to the winner in the four stroke-play events, and was never a back-nine contender in the final round. It left doubts as to his competitiveness at the year’s first major championship.
“Personally, I wasn’t quite sure he had enough tournament rounds,” says Joe LaCava. “We had a pretty light schedule going in. Having said that, I know when he’s not feeling well. I think he knew he needed to save up some energy and it was more important for him to be rested and get his back worked on versus playing tournament golf. Easy to say now, because he won the thing. But I thought we needed one or two more tournaments to be a little sharper going in.”
A few days following his quarterfinal loss at the WGC Match Play in Austin, Texas, Woods played a practice round at Augusta National. It was the Wednesday prior to tournament week, and despite a three-putt bogey on the first hole, Woods shot 65.
That was a promising sign, but the course never plays the same a week prior to the tournament, so perhaps a more important occurrence was when Woods returned to Augusta National on Sunday evening for a putting and chipping session in the late-afternoon gloaming.
Most had left the course for the day, so Woods headed out with LaCava and Rob McNamara, Woods’ friend and business associate, using just a wedge and a putter to traverse the course.
“Ball-striking-wise, he was way ahead of where he was [a year prior] coming into the last couple of months,” McNamara said after the Masters. “All year he [had been driving] the ball and really struck the ball extremely well. It was just scoring. Short game and putting. I started to see a change once he started pitching it really close and tight. That was some of that work on Sunday night. Just taking a wedge around. He knew it was about pitches and chips and controlling your distance and your speed and your spin. He started getting dialed in and had a nice feel. I think that carried him through.”
Woods had adopted a less-is-more approach to practice prior to tournaments, especially the majors, where a pro-am round was not required. He preferred to play nine holes, seeking the proper balance between getting ready and doing too much. There was always concern he was not seeing enough of the course, and it heightened when Woods did not practice on Tuesday. But there were also concerns about taxing his body.
“The best move I made the entire week was to not go out and play on that Tuesday,” Woods said. “The rain had come in and the greens had slowed up. They didn’t quite cut them. The golf course was playing slower. I knew they would speed it up come Thursday. That was the best thing I could have done.”
So it was back to work on Wednesday, and Woods played a practice round with Fred Couples, the 1992 Masters champion, and Justin Thomas, his South Florida friend who would get close to Woods and his son, Charlie.
And what occurred on the ninth green came in handy during the tournament, when Woods faced a dicey two-putt from 50 feet, a downhill effort that he lagged to within inches to save par.
“It was huge,” LaCava says. “He hits it way back to that top shelf. Back left, the third tier. The pin is front left. And the funny thing is when we finished up on Wednesday with J.T. and Fred, Tiger dropped a ball and they had a little closest-to contest. He dropped the ball a foot from where he hit it on Sunday. And the pin was a foot from where it was on Sunday.
“Now listen, I don’t think that’s ever an easy two-putt. But it’s certainly way easier on Wednesday with nothing on the line than Sunday. But I think it helped a little bit. He had a good look at it Wednesday, believe it or not. You drop ten balls there, you’re going to hit two that close. You’ll leave one up top. You might hit one off the green. You’re going to three-putt three times. And for him to hit it to like a tap-in was huge.”
For the first time in five years, Woods was under par following the first round of a major championship. And for just the ninth time in twenty-two Masters starts, Woods broke par on the opening day at Augusta National. A 2-under-par 70 saw him on the leaderboard as well, four strokes back of Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau.
The most recent time he had shot under par during the first round of a major was at the 2014 Open, where he shot 69 but faded. “I felt like I played well and I did all the things I needed to do today to post a good number,” Woods said. “I drove it well, hit some good iron shots, speed was good on the greens. And it was tricky, the winds as of right now — it puffs up, it goes down, it switches directions, and it’s typical of this golf course, it just kind of swirls out there and it’s hard to get a bead on exactly what it’s doing at all times.” Woods made four birdies and two bogeys, the last coming at the par-4 17th when he found the trees off the tee and could not get up and down from the left front of the green.
That denied him a chance at just his second opening round in the 60s at Augusta. The only time he’d been under 70 in the first round to that point was in 2010, when he shot 68.
And yet, three of his four Masters victories — 1997, 2001, and 2002 — came after opening the tournament with a 70.
The good news for Woods was that nobody went crazy low on a day that seemed ripe for scoring, with soft conditions, warm temperatures, and manageable wind.
“I’m sort of surprised,” said pre-tournament favorite Rory McIlroy, who made five birdies but bogeyed his last two holes to shoot 73. “I’m sort of surprised that there hasn’t been lower scores out there. It’s soft. The greens are sort of slow. It’s there for the taking, and I’m surprised someone hasn’t run off.”
Several players who had late tee times made runs in the afternoon, including three-time major champion Koepka — who missed the 2018 Masters with a wrist injury.
But Woods had struggled with slow starts and had yet to shoot an opening round in the 60s that year. Like many, Woods often had first-tee jitters. Anecdotally, there were numerous examples over the years where a ramped-up Woods would miss a fairway badly on his first tee shot of the tournament.
There was no better example than the 2008 U.S. Open, where Woods stunningly won despite making a double bogey at the opening hole in three of the four regulation rounds.
He started slowly again this time, although he birdied the 2nd hole before missing a 5-footer for par at the 5th, and a 4-footer for birdie at the 6th. He had another chance for a birdie at the 8th from 9 feet but was unable to convert, finally getting one to drop at the 9th to shoot a front-side 35.
After a two-putt birdie from 50 feet at the par-5 13th, Woods made an impressive birdie at the par-4 14th, where his approach from the trees stopped 25 feet away and he curled in an unlikely putt.
At 3 under, that marked the most Woods had ever been under par through 14 holes of his opening round of the Masters.
But he couldn’t take advantage of a big drive at the par-5 15th, knocking his approach over the green and having to scramble for par. And he’d let those other opportunities get away, particularly the sixth and eighth holes.
“It’s not a bad start,” Woods said. “I’ve only shot under 70 one time, but I’ve shot 70 [three of the] four times that I have won here. So we still have a long way to go. Tee off late tomorrow and the wind’s supposed to be up, so I have my work cut out for me the rest of the week, and so does everyone else.”
Little did Woods know that Friday’s biggest obstacle would arrive in the form of a human missile.
The sliding, perhaps overzealous, security guard meant well, but for a few fleeting, scary moments during the second round, the scene appeared ominous for Woods, who was clipped in the right knee and was left hobbling to the fourteenth green.
That he would go on to birdie the hole was but one aspect of a wild day. Woods overcame the injury scare, a balky putter — at least on the short ones — a weather delay, and the pressure that comes with contending in a major championship to shoot 4-under-par 68 and put himself firmly in the hunt for a fifth green jacket.
Woods was a shot behind an all-star cast that included Koepka, Adam Scott, Francesco Molinari, Jason Day, and Louis Oosthuizen. All were major championship winners.
“I feel like I played my own way back into the tournament,” said Woods, who was in a share of sixth place. “I was just very patient today, felt very good to be out there doing what I was doing. This is now three straight majors that I’ve been in the mix, and so it’s good stuff.”
Woods finished tied for sixth at The Open, where Molinari won, and was second at the PGA Championship, where Koepka won his third major. And now 36 holes into his 22nd Masters appearance, he’d given himself another opportunity; his 36-hole score matched the fourth-best of his Masters career.
And for the first time in seven years — since the 2012 PGA Championship — Woods opened a major with consecutive rounds under par.
But it was far from routine. In fact, a different Woods might have lost his patience and cool, given the opportunities he let pass. He made six birdies, including a 30-footer at the ninth, a 15-footer at the 14th after the near-accident, and another 30-footer at the 15th, where he made his only par-5 birdie of the day.
But he missed a 5-footer for par at the fifth; three-putted the eighth to bogey a par-5; had it to 5 feet after an excellent approach at the par-3 12th and failed to convert. After a nice two-putt for par at the 16th, Woods had an 8-footer for birdie at the 17th and an 14-footer at the 18th, neither of which dropped.
“I missed a few putts out there, but I’m not too bummed out about it, because I hit them on my lines,” he said. “So I can live with that. I can live with days when I’m hitting putts on my line and they just don’t go in; that’s the way it goes.
“But I also made some distance putts there at 9, 14, and 15. They were nice to make and if I keep hitting the putts on my line, they will start dropping.”
By the time Woods headed out at 1:47 p.m., scores had gone much lower. He was tied for 11th. Koepka and DeChambeau (who shot 75) dropped back, and Molinari (67), Day (67), Scott (68), and Oosthuizen (67) made their moves to the top. Koepka’s 71 helped him keep a share of the lead at 137, 7 under.
They were followed by Woods, Dustin Johnson, Justin Hardin, and Xander Schauffele at 6 under.
“This is really stacked,” Scott said. “I think it’s going to be an incredible weekend no matter what happens now. There are so many great players in with a chance. It really is an exciting leaderboard, fun to be a part of.”
Saturday’s third round would be a big one in terms of the quest for a fifteenth major title. Would he stay in contention or simply fade off? There was a good bit of work to be done, and Woods managed to put himself in a position to accomplish the ultimate goal and win his first major since 2005.
And the lavender mock turtleneck was a throwback to four- teen years earlier, when the red mock took center stage in the final round as he executed the famous chip-in birdie from behind the 16th green before eventually winning in a playoff.
A more conventional birdie at the same par-3 during the third round stamped a 5-under-par 67 and put him within grasp of that elusive major, with a familiar nemesis in his path.
Molinari, European Ryder Cup hero and suddenly the world’s most steely golfer, was there again, and to be alongside Woods and Tony Finau in a rare Sunday three-ball.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been in contention here,” said Woods, who was to begin the final round two strokes back of Molinari and tied with Finau. “But then again, the last two majors count for something. I’ve been in the mix with a chance to win major championships in the last two years. And so that helps.”
Molinari shot 66 and did not make a bogey over his last two rounds, with just one for the tournament — at the 11th hole on the first day. Since the previous year’s Masters, Molinari, 36 at the time, had amassed four worldwide victories, including The Open, the European Tour’s BMW Championship, and the Arnold Palmer Invitational a month earlier.
All fourteen of Woods’ major victories had come with at least a share of the 54-hole lead, but that stat discounted the fact that several times he trailed in a final round before rallying.
He would need to do that on a final day that was expected to be impacted by the weather.
“It will be interesting to see if that wind comes up like it’s forecast; fifteen, twenty miles an hour around this golf course is going to be testy,” Woods said. “And to be committed, hit the proper shots, and then hopefully we time it right.”
Woods failed to birdie the par-5 second hole during the third round and appeared to be spinning in the Augusta sand as players like Finau, Webb Simpson, and Patrick Cantlay were having their way with the venerable course.
All three shot 64, one off the course record held by Nick Price and Greg Norman, and produced a Masters first: The tournament had never before seen more than one score of 64 or better in a round, and now it had seen three in one day.
But following a bogey at the par-4 fifth hole — his third of the tournament, after finding a fairway bunker each time — Woods had a quick talk with himself walking to the sixth tee.
“Just be patient,” he said. “Very simple. The golf course is certainly gettable, a lot of scores going out there. One of the ams [amateurs] was out there earlier [Takumi Kanaya, who shot 68]. He was four or five under. Patrick [Cantlay] was going low. Tony obviously was six under through eight. Just be patient. Let the round build. We’ve got a long way to go.”
And that’s exactly what happened. Woods got going with a birdie at the par-3 sixth, rolling in an 18-footer. He knocked an approach stiff at the seventh, converting from just a foot. And he finally handled the par-5 eighth, knocking his second shot on the green and giving himself an 11-footer for eagle that he missed, but still a third straight birdie.
From there, it was all pars until Woods got a break with his tee shot on the par-5 13th. It appeared he pulled it too close to the trees that line the corner, but the ball somehow got through, and came to rest in the rough. He laid up to 70 yards, then pitched close for his fourth birdie of the day.
Then at the par-5 15th, Woods knocked his second shot just over the green from 218 yards, hitting another nice pitch to set up birdie. He added his final birdie at the par-3 16th, rolling in a 7-footer that helped him finish at 205, 11 under par.
Molinari led at 203, with Woods and Finau tied at 205. Koepka, after a 69, was three shots back of Molinari, with Webb Simpson and Ian Poulter four behind.
Woods hit 16 of 18 greens for the second straight day and was tied for second in greens in regulation, always an important factor for him: In all four of his Masters victories, he was no worse than second in that category.
“I just did everything,” he said. “I drove it well and hit my irons well. I made some putts. Like I said, I just let the round just kind of build. And I don’t need to go after every single flag. Just put the ball in the correct spots so I can have gettable looks and gettable putts. “And I was able to do that, and I tried to keep the ball below the hole as best as I possibly could. And I made sure that I had those type of looks, and if I gave myself those looks, the way that I’m hitting my lines I’m going to be all right.”
Woods was closer to the lead than he was in any major going into the final round since the 2013 Open at Muirfield, where he was also two back but finished sixth.
He noted that the early start would be unusual, and while Woods is a notoriously poor sleeper, he needed the extra time each day due to his back issues to prepare for a round of golf.
It was a challenge he relished.
“The day I don’t feel pressure is the day I quit,” he said. “I always thought that if you care about something, obviously you’re going to feel pressure. And I’ve always felt it, from the first time I remember ever playing a golf tournament to now. That hasn’t changed.”
The final round was moved up due to that dire weather forecast, which showed rain and thunderstorms hitting the area in midafternoon. So the Masters took the unusual step of putting players out in threesomes, starting on both tees, hoping to end the tournament prior to the projected storms, meaning Woods also needed to awaken earlier and go through the process of getting ready to play golf, which for him was elaborate.
That meant his lengthy routine of stretching, physical therapy, and engagement. This likely took several hours, and was necessary for Woods, allowing him to not only loosen up his various body parts but to try to prevent injury.
As the early holes played out, Woods struggled to stay close to Molinari, who began the round with a two-shot advantage and kept scrambling to keep his lead. Woods finally got within a shot when he knocked his approach close at the par-4 seventh.
Because of the 9:20 a.m. tee time (Woods would have been teeing off shortly after 2 p.m. on a normal Masters Sunday), he had not seen his kids, Sam and Charlie, before heading to the first tee. They had made plans to arrive Sunday morning. And they almost didn’t come at all.
Had Sam’s soccer team won its tournament game a day earlier in Florida, there would have been no trip to Augusta, because her team would have continued on. And there would have been no Augusta for Charlie, either. They would have stayed home and watched the tournament on TV.
Instead, they had their first opportunity to see their dad in his Sunday red at the Masters — having previously been to Augusta National only one time prior, for the 2015 Par 3 Contest.
But when Woods struck his tee shot off Augusta’s No. 1 hole, he was unsure if they had arrived.
“I didn’t know until I got to 7 and I had that little tap-in for birdie, and I see Charlie is jumping up and down,” Woods says. “And I thought, ‘Good, they made it; they made it.’ And I didn’t see them the rest of the day until 18.”
The turning point turned out to be the 12th hole, where Tiger’s competitors could not keep their golf balls out of Rae’s Creek. Four players, including Molinari, found the water there, dooming their chances.
One who didn’t was Webb Simpson, who played in the group preceding Woods along with Koepka and Ian Poulter. Simpson felt like he didn’t give himself much of a chance to win that day, despite finishing the tournament just two strokes back.
“It was cool,” Simpson says. “You could feel how much everybody wanted Tiger to win. My crowd . . . There was like eight of them. When I made the birdie on 13, there were like eight claps. Everybody else was cheering for Tiger. And honestly, that was the first time at Augusta where I heard anyone cheer for a water ball. They cheered for Molinari’s and Finau’s water ball, because it meant Tiger had a better chance. They were all excited.
“When I was on 13 waiting to hit, I turned around to see Tiger on the [12th] green. That’s when I think as a player, you remove yourself for a second, and you take in the moment. And I did that. I grew up watching him. In ’97, I was there for a practice round. And then it’s his Sunday red on the twelfth green of Augusta, maybe the most famous picture in golf. It was cool. I told myself, ‘You’re competing against Tiger Woods in the Masters. That is a childhood dream.’ So I took that in.”
Woods was tied for the first time after the 12th hole but didn’t take the lead until his birdie at the par-5 15th, where Molinari ran into trouble. A wayward drive to the right, a poor punch-out that went through the fairway on the left — and then a clipped tree branch as he attempted to hit his third shot to the green. Ball in the water, double bogey, game over.
Molinari’s miscues meant more gasps, but Woods had only separated by a shot. There were still three holes to play, and the par-3 16th, the site of so much drama over the years, delivered again. Woods’ iron tee shot flew toward the right side of the green, landed on a slope, kicked left, and gained momentum as it tracked toward the hole.
One of the more iconic photos that emerged from that tee shot is Woods staring the ball down while chewing gum — and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps behind the gallery rope intently watching the flight of the ball.
It stopped just a few feet away, setting up a short birdie putt that led to a comical moment amid all the tension. Woods asked LaCava for a read on the putt, which was less than 3 feet — to which Joe replied: “Just knock it in!” Woods did, meaning a two-shot advantage with two holes to play.
“We’re on the 17th tee, Tiger hits and lands it on the hill and it starts trickling,” Simpson says. “We have a perfect view. Crowd is so excited. They want it to go in. It looks like it’s going in. And [Simpson’s caddie] Paul [Tesori] turns around and looks at me and says, ‘What if this went in?’ It was one of those moments you’ll never forget. The crowd is so loud they’re oblivious to everyone on the tee. That was a cool moment, too.”
Tesori remembered just how loud it was at that time: “You could hear the crowd murmur and as the ball was getting closer to landing, you could hear the excitement,” Tesori says. “Obviously when the ball landed and started to trickle, it just got louder and louder. I had goose bumps and said to Webber, ‘Can you imagine if this goes in?’ It was just a surreal feeling, one that I will never forget. Brooks was first to hit on our tee and he hit while the crowd was still extremely loud from all the applause.”
Woods had not been in this position at Augusta National in fourteen years. Way back in 2005, he led by two shots with two holes to play, then inexplicably bogeyed both the 17th and 18th holes, nearly losing to Chris DiMarco, who came agonizingly close to chipping in for a birdie at the 18th that would have won. Woods won in a playoff.
So there was still work to be done.
“The tee shot he hit on 17 I think was everything for me,” says Justin Rose, who watched the final round from home after missing the cut. “That’s just a tee shot that you can’t hide from. It’s straightaway. It’s like you either hit it straight or you’re in the trees. With a two-shot lead, 17 was the only hole that could have really made it difficult for him. So that was cool to see.”
Woods laced his tee shot into the fairway, and knocked his approach to 10 feet, narrowly missing a birdie putt that would have all but ended any drama. He went to the 18th tee still leading by two strokes. Up ahead, both Dustin Johnson and Koepka had missed birdie putts that might have made things far more difficult.
A nervy tee shot ensued, with Woods flaring one out to the right, leaving him a long way from the green. But he needed only a bogey, so Woods played a shot short of the green, wedged on, and then had two-putts for a most satisfying and remark- able win.
After Woods holed the winning putt, he raised his arms in triumph and then eventually headed off the green through a chute to the scoring area, where cheering and chanting rang in his ears as he greeted his family, including son Charlie, wearing a backwards baseball cap. It brought back all kinds of memories and flashbacks to 1997, when Woods walked into the arms of his father, Earl, following his first Masters win.
“I had never, ever in all my years of going there and all my years of watching the Masters . . . I had never heard chanting at Augusta National,” Woods says of the continuous “Tiger, Tiger” bellowing that followed him from the eighteenth green all the way to the clubhouse and beyond. “I get goose bumps talking about it still. The chanting. The amount of support I had. So many people that wanted to see me do it.
“It was special to have that kind of support, that kind of backing. I was going up against the best players in the world. I was trying to come from behind for the first time [to win a major]. And that support was so important.”
Once he was near the clubhouse, a group of several players — including past champions Bernhard Langer, Trevor Immelman, Zach Johnson, and Bubba Watson —all waited for him wearing their green jackets.
There were other players, too, including Koepka and Poulter and Xander.
“I wanted to congratulate him,” Schauffele says. “I didn’t know him very well at the time, but I know him a little bit better since he was the playing captain in the Presidents Cup. It was a sight to see. Augusta is known for being very quiet and reserved, traditional, and it was a circus when Tiger came off that 18th hole. I think every green jacket [Augusta National member] loved it. It was some- thing that hasn’t occurred there too often.”
Says Keegan Bradley: “I was out on the course, but I watched the end and got to see it. It was spectacular. Probably the greatest moment in the history of the game. Really. The whole celebration. Everything that went into it. It was just so perfect. Now looking back on it and what has happened, it makes it more special.”
Gary Woodland, who finished earlier, said he changed his flight in order to stick around and watch the finish.
“I wouldn’t do that for anybody else,” says Woodland, who won the U.S. Open later that year. “I wanted to see it. The way he finished it. The way he played when everybody else was sort of folding on 12. That was epic Tiger.
“I played with Tiger when he was struggling. Back when he couldn’t hit it on the planet. But he always found a way to get the ball in the hole. You want him to be able to go out on his own terms. We’re all here because of him and we all look up to him. You kind of felt like you were part of it. It was special. Just so happy for Tiger.”
Due to the weather issues — which never materialized — there was not supposed to be a second green jacket ceremony on the putting green, as is the custom, but only the one in the Butler Cabin, where Woods was presented the green jacket by Patrick Reed in a ceremony shown on TV. Usually numerous chairs are set up for Augusta National members and various golf dignitaries to watch the event unfold, with chairman Fred Ridley offering various remarks before the defending champion puts the jacket on the new one. None of that occurred.
The Butler Cabin ceremony took place as scheduled for the CBS audience, but Woods did still have a semi-ceremony on the eighteenth green, Reed putting the jacket on him, being handed the Masters trophy, and a long photo-taking session to cheers.
“When I was done [playing], sitting there and waiting and watching it unfold, and then seeing Tiger make the putt to win, it was inspiring,” Reed says. “To put the jacket on him was unbelievable. The only thing I could think of when I did that was to not mess it up. I reminded myself to make sure I put the jacket on him correctly. And we got that job done. But it was a special moment. “Growing up and watching him win everything and how dominant he was and the focus and energy he had, and the talent he had was just unbelievable. It definitely drove me and others to push really hard and try to get to that kind of level. I know I grinded harder and worked harder because I saw Tiger do what he did.” After conducting his media interviews, Woods went to the Champions locker room, where he shares a locker with 1956 champion Jackie Burke, the oldest living Masters champion.
Tiger Woods celebrates winning his fifth Masters in 2019 / Augusta National, Getty Images
And then, in a twist, he had his green jacket tailored, a process that took about 90 minutes. During that time, Woods headed back to the Butler Cabin for a 15-minute interview with CBS’s Jim Nantz that aired during the rebroadcast of the final round that afternoon. There was a cocktail party in the clubhouse and then a reception in the Founders Room that included a moving speech by Woods to the members. He later posed for photos with everyone who asked.
Because the day had begun so early, Woods emerged from all of his obligations to a different scene from the one he had encountered at each of his previous four Masters victories. Instead of darkness, there was still light.
“I have never seen the golf course empty like that,” Woods says. “I was out there with Sam and Charlie and I said, ‘This is what Augusta National is like.’ You see the beauty of it. The rolling hills. The perfect grass. It was immaculate.
“It’s so different when nobody is out there. That’s when they started to understand how beautiful the place is.”
The win was mesmerizing, capturing the attention of sports people and entertainment personalities around the world. The former president, Barack Obama, offered his congratulations via social media, as did the current president, Donald Trump, who weeks later invited Woods to the White House along with his fam- ily to present him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
I was in awe. I thought this was the greatest thing that ever happened to the game. I can’t tell you the words I used but there weren’t a lot of letters in them!
Lee Trevino
Among those who could not get enough was Lee Trevino, the six-time major champion, who at age 79 watched from his home in Dallas with his wife, Claudia.
“Glued to the TV,” Trevino says. “We were watching Tiger, especially that Sunday. We knew he had a chance to win. And I never thought for one second that he wouldn’t win again. I felt like if he got his back straightened out, he would be fine.
“Goddamn it, it was just like [when] Nicklaus won at forty-six [in 1986]. I had just finished playing [the Masters, finishing 47th] and I drove to Atlanta. I was in the airport and there was a bar across our gate where we were getting on the plane. And Nicklaus made that eagle putt on fifteen, everybody went nuts. And they were loading the plane and nobody would get on. They had to stop and wait for Nicklaus to finish. We told them to go ahead, we’ll take the next one! I remember exactly where I was then.
“And it was the same with Tiger. I was at home, and it was wonderful. I was in awe. I thought this was the greatest thing that ever happened to the game. I can’t tell you the words I used but there weren’t a lot of letters in them! I know he had a pretty private life for all those years. And when he got hurt and it looked like he wasn’t going to play anymore, I think he realized that people really loved him. He got all kinds of letters. And I don’t think he ever realized that. When he came back, the way they accepted him, it was for the better. He’s got a lot of personality. He has to understand now how much people love him. Especially golfers. We respect him. He didn’t fall out of bed and become the greatest golfer in the world.”
Trevino said he saw Woods at a gathering of past U.S. Open champions later that summer at Pebble Beach.
“I was just so happy for him,” Trevino says. “I had dinner with him at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. It was a great evening. He’s the guy that makes me turn my TV on. Not too many people can do that. How’s Tiger doing? No disrespect to anyone else. But Tiger makes me turn on my TV.”
There is no doubt that Woods’ win invoked some of the same feelings as the ones achieved by Nicklaus thirty-three years earlier. Neither player was expected to win. Both had long spells between major championships.
Woods, at age 43, became the second-oldest Masters champion after Nicklaus.
“I think this is one of the best sports stories we’ve ever seen,” says Immelman, who won the 2008 Masters — when Woods finished second, the closest he had been to victory at Augusta National since his last win in 2005.
“When I was coming through the ranks and he was at the height of his game, you always got the feeling that he knew he was the best, you knew he was the best, and that’s just the way it is.
“But a couple of years ago, after surgeries and everything else that happened, it was the first time I had ever seen him uncertain.
It’s a word that I would have never used for Tiger Woods . . . To dig himself back from that moment to here is something that is just so special. Special for our game. This is awesome. For my mind, this goes down in the same vein as Jack in ’86.”