Tiger Woods had just won the Canadian Open in 2000 with a shot no one can forget, a 6-iron out of a fairway bunker on the par-5 18th at Glen Abbey that went over the water, right at the flag and settled on the fringe 20 feet away to secure victory.
On the phone that evening was his father, Earl Woods, who had watched from home and felt like he had seen so much of it before.
“In every tournament,” Earl said, “he'll hit shots that people will be talking
about for 30 years.”
Woods turns 50 on Tuesday, a milestone in life and just a number in a sport that can be played for a lifetime. It makes him eligible for the PGA Tour Champions if he cares. That's to be determined. But his father was right. Woods was 20 when he turned pro and hit shots that are still talked about to this day.
Where to start?
One way to look back at his career is to consider significant shots he hit with all 14 clubs in the bag, including two of them only seen by those who were with him.
Power was the hallmark of Woods when he turned pro. One shot that would have captured that was his drive on the par-5 15th at the 1997 Masters, when he shot 30 on the back nine of the opening round to get back in contention. It was a 349-yard drive. He had pitching wedge left to the green.
Davis Love III also was a power player. He recalls pounding one that day on No. 15, and he was waiting for his playing partners to hit from much further back. “I'm waiting to hit my 9-iron in and the crossing guard goes, ‘Tiger Woods hit a wedge in there,’” Love said.
Woods retooled his swing with Butch Harmon and added precision to the power. The best example was the par-5 14th at St. Andrews in the 2000 British Open, which Woods often referred to later as his 2-inch draw.
Woods faced a late challenge from Phil Mickelson in the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black. Mickelson had pulled within two shots when Woods laced a 2-iron onto the green of the 554-yard 13th hole to set up a two-putt birdie. Mickelson got no closer the rest of the way.
Woods considers this among the best shots he ever hit. He was in a fairway bunker on the par-4 18th at Hazeltine in the 2002 PGA Championship, 202 yards from the hole. The ball was below his feet. He barely had enough room to stand without his legs brushing against the side of the bunker. He had to clear the lip, clear a cluster of trees 72 yards away and get to the back of the green into 35 mph gusts. He hit 3-iron into 12 feet for birdie. “The best shot I’ve ever seen him hit,” caddie Steve Williams said. Ernie Els said as much without saying anything. He looked over at two reporters, widened his eyes and shook his head.
This took place Wednesday, the final practice round for the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach that Woods went on to win by 15 shots. Paul Goydos played in the group. It's best to let him take it from here, starting on the par-3 12th where Goydos hit the best 4-iron of his life that bounced off a green as if on a trampoline.
“Tiger hits this shot over the moon, flies the bunker and stops this far,” Goydos said, holding his hands 5 feet apart. “I said, ‘What did you hit there?’ He said, ‘4-iron.’ So we get to 18 and I drove it down the left side, had about 233 to the front and hit 3-wood. Tiger hit the ball a little farther right and he was about 5 yards ahead of me.
“He hits this shot — WHOOOSH! — like a rocket. I said, ‘What did you hit?’ He said, ‘4-iron.’ And I said, ‘Boys, this tournament is over.’ Because if you can hit a 4-iron 195 yards in the air and 225 yards in the air when you want, this tournament is OVER.”
Woods won by 15, still a major championship record.
Woods had gone eight PGA Tour events without winning — one magazine raised the idea of a “slump” — when he came to the 18th hole at Bay Hill tied for the lead. He pulled his tee shot that hit a spectator and left him a trampled lie in the grass. He hit 5-iron to 15 feet tor the winning birdie. He did that a lot at Bay Hill.
Woods already had won the U.S. Open and British Open in 2000. He had a one-shot lead in final round of the Canadian Open over Grant Waite, who already had found the green on the par-5 18th. Woods was 218 yards away in a bunker when he hit 6-iron out of the sand, over the water and to about 20 feet for a two-putt birdie.
Waite said when it was over, “The guy takes out a 6-iron, fires at the flag, with the tournament on the line. He said, ‘The shot was on.’ I guess it was.”
Woods was 202 yards away in deep rough right of the fairway on the par-5 sixth hole at Pebble Beach in the second round of the 2000 U.S. Open. Most players pitch back to the fairway instead of going over a corner of the ocean up a steep hill. Woods hit 7-iron onto the edge of the green.
That prompted Roger Maltbie of NBC to utter a phrase that summed up the state of golf at the time when he said, “It's just not a fair fight.”
Eleven years removed from his last major title, and recovered from four back surgeries that nearly ended his career, Woods had a one-shot lead Sunday in the 2019 Masters when he hit an 8-iron into the par-3 16th that caught the ridge and nearly went in. It settled a few feet away for a tap-in birdie that all but sealed his stunning comeback to win a fifth green jacket.
Perhaps the best example of the sheer magic Woods brought to the game was his debut in the rowdy Phoenix Open in 1997. The showcase is Saturday on the par-3 16th hole where thousands of spectators are looking for any reason to erupt. Woods gave them a 9-iron that landed just short of the cup and rolled in for a hole-in-one, bringing down a shower of beer spray from the crowd.
Woods was seven shots behind as he played the back nine in the final round of the 2000 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. When he failed to birdie the par-5 14th, his chances looked to be over. But from 97 yards in the fairway on No. 15, he hit pitching wedge to take off some of the spin on the rain-softened greens. It landed near the cup and spun sideways into the hole for eagle, sparking his greatest comeback in a tournament.
This was the club Woods often used to warm up, and to start his range session ahead of the final round at the 2005 British Open at St. Andrews, he hit the 100-yard sign four straight times — not just the sign, the right “0” on the sign, four in a row. Williams said swing coach Hank Haney whispered to him, “The first time he gets inside 100 yards, you might want to tell to aim away from the flag.” Williams thought he was joking.
The first occasion was No. 6. Woods had 98 yards to the hole and it one-hopped off the pin and bounced back off the green, forcing him to scramble for par.
Among his most memorable shots came in the final round at the 2005 Masters when he was clinging to a one-shot lead over Chris DiMarco and had gone long of the green on the par-3 16th. Woods used lob wedge to chip away from the flag and up the slope, and then watched it trickle back down toward the cup where it paused a full second at the hole before dropping for birdie.
From a long list of possibilities, best to turn this over to Woods. He said the 6-footer he made for birdie on the final hole of the 2000 PGA Championship at Valhalla was the most pressure he had ever felt over a putt. At stake was a chance to win his third straight major in one year. “I don't think that really falls in your lap every often,” Woods said in 2013.
The putt got him into a three-hole playoff with Bob May, and Woods prevailed. Nearly eight months later, he won the Masters to become the only player to hold all four majors at the same time.
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