The azaleas, the magnolias and the dogwoods are beginning to bloom in the American South right about now and that can only mean that we’re just about 11 days from the start of the 81st edition of the Masters Golf Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. The defending champion is Englishman Danny Willett. All of the past champions also receive an automatic invite to the Masters although one very well known four-time former winner is still uncertain of his ability to play, namely Tiger Woods.
It was 20 years ago that Tiger forced the world of golf to take notice as he romped to his first major triumph at Augusta National by a truly amazing 12 strokes. It is estimated that 44 million viewers watched the final round of the Masters during that Sunday in April, the largest television rating in the history of the game. An all-new trend had begun as fans of the game as well as casual viewers turned on golf, not necessarily because of the intensity of the competition or the closeness of the tournament but because Tiger Woods was on center stage.
When the 1997 Masters began on Thursday, April 10, the 21-year-old Woods was a very well known entity. He was a three-time U.S. Junior champ, a three-time U.S. Amateur champ, had won the NCAA title the previous spring, and when he turned pro in late 1996 he made an instant impact by winning a pair of titles in Las Vegas and Disney World. Yet he was still a very young player in a golfing world dominated by the likes of Nick Faldo, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Davis Love III and Freddie Couples, all major champions.
Woods’ opening nine at the ’97 Masters was a stumbling 4-over-par 40 and yet Tiger followed it up with a most impressive 6-under-par back-nine 30 to card a 2-under-par 70. His rollercoaster round left him in solo fourth place, three strokes behind John Huston. On Masters Friday, Tiger put together a brilliant 18-hole round by recording a 7-under-par 65 to grab a three-stroke lead over Colin Montgomerie. Saturday was more of the same as Tiger carded a 66 and suddenly the Masters was over with 18 holes remaining. On Saturday evening Tiger had a nine-shot cushion over Constantino Rocca.
Not only did Tiger have an insurmountable lead in the 1997 Masters, but it was the way that he was doing so that was the ultimate eye opener. It wasn’t that Tiger was displaying the putting stroke of Ben Crenshaw or the iron game of Raymond Floyd. Instead, he was beating the course into submission with pure power. While others were hitting driver and 3-iron into Augusta National’s back-nine par-5s, Woods was bombing driver some 60 yards past the game’s biggest names and then hitting 9-irons and pitching wedges into the greens.
Sunday’s final round was little more than a coronation ceremony. Woods carded a 3-under-par 69. His 270 total of 18-under-par eclipsed the 72-hole tournament record set by Jack Nicklaus in 1965 and matched by Raymond Floyd in 1976. He was the youngest champion in the history of the Masters. His 12-stroke margin of victory over Tom Kite was the greatest winning margin in one of golf’s four major championships although that mark would only last for three years, topped by Tiger himself when he won the 2000 United States Open at Pebble Beach by an otherworldly 15 strokes.
Woods also was the first person of color to win a major title. For many years the only black men inside the ropes at Augusta National were the caddies, and the course had a long history of racial backwardness. Tiger’s win not only was one for the ages, but it was also a defining moment for two generations of black professional golfers beginning with Ted Rhodes and Charlie Sifford and moving into the golden era of golf when men such as Lee Elder, Pete Brown and Calvin Peete won PGA Tour events but were not afforded invites to the Masters.
When looking at our modern era of million-dollar-plus purses, the money available at the 1997 Masters pales in comparison. The entire purse for the Masters that year was $2.7 million and Tiger’s victory added $486,000 to his bank account. Tiger’s win would change all that.
One month later Tiger won the Byron Nelson. During the Fourth of July weekend he won the Western Open. While marching up the 18th fairway with a three-stroke lead, thousands of gallery members spilled onto the fairway at Cog Hill and surrounded Tiger and his caddie Fluff Cowan. The new king of golf had been crowned and his growing legion of fans were excited about this once-in-a-generation talent. Tiger Woods brought a new excitement to the game.
Yet shortly thereafter Woods decided that his two tour wins in 1996, his Masters triumph by a record setting margin and his follow-up victories in the Nelson and the Western, were not enough. Tiger was convinced that his swing lacked a certain tightness, a certain reliability in his quest to be the greatest of all time. He felt he couldn’t depend on it at the heat of the moment. He began to spend extensive amounts of practice time with his coach, Butch Harmon, to rebuild his swing so that he could rely on it when the pressure was greatest. He would win just once in 1998 in Atlanta while his big brother on tour, Mark O’Meara, would become the PGA Tour player of the year in 1998 with major wins in the Masters and the British Open.
It would take until mid-August of 1999 for Tiger to win his second major title, beating Sergio Garcia by one stroke at the PGA Championship at Medinah. His high-water mark would begin the following June as he won the U.S. Open by that record-setting margin of 15 strokes, prevailed in the British Open at St. Andrews, winning by eight strokes, and then adding the PGA Championship with an overtime win over Bobby May at Valhalla. The following April, Woods would add a second green jacket to his collection with a two-stroke win over David Duval. He held all four major titles at once and pundits called it the Tiger Slam. From the 1999 PGA Championship to the 2001 Masters, Tiger also would win 12 PGA Tour events.
The legend of Tiger Woods began 20 years ago when he captured his first major at the 1997 Masters, winning by 12 strokes over U.S. Open champ Tom Kite. It remains the highest-rated golf broadcast in the history of the game. For some of us, it doesn’t seem like it was all that long ago and yet in retrospect, especially with Tiger’s health issues, it really was a long time ago.
