When he broke out the 2 iron stinger and hit it farther than a lot of guys on tour hit 3 wood or driver.
His chip in off the side of the green at Augusta.
His charge to win the US Open with a single knee.
I started playing because of Tiger, I’m 41 now, and I was fortunate enough to see him in person a couple of times. He was built different and played a completely different game than pretty much every other tour player.
His power was amazing. He could muscle a 9 iron, today’s equivalent would be like a pitching wedge, 190 out of the first cut and it was like a dart.
He had a Nike contract but had a performance clause, he could play whatever equipment he felt would help him win.
Then you’ve got the crowds. I was at a Kapalua for the MB. There was a small crowd even for golf standards, and there would be 80% of the crowd following him or anticipating him coming and get set to watch.
I was blessed to watch Gretzky, Jordan, and Tiger. Those three completely changed their respective sports, full stop.
Glad you called out Gretzky and Jordan. Tiger was right up there with them. He made golf so much more popular just by being out there (and being amazing while he was).
I just wish I could have seen Muhammad Ali, Pele, and Babe Ruth in their prime, too.
If he can sustain what he is doing he will revolutionize the game the way tiger did. Right now, ball players all over the world are studying Ohtani trying to figure out how he is able to do what he does.
I grew up playing and loosely following baseball but haven’t been interested in the MLB for 15ish years. What exactly is he doing so differently? I thought he isn’t expected to pitch with this new contract.
He isn’t going to pitch in 2024, but should moving forward. He’s an ace and clean up hitter with good enough speed to steal some bags. We’ve literally never seen a player like him before.
Relatively few people actually “saw” Ali in most of his fights. Most of the ones in the 1970s were pay-per-view live only on closed-circuit TV, sort of a precursor of cable, which was expensive back then for middle class folks
I’ve always been curious of who was more impactful in their respective sport, but also on the generation on the whole: Woods, Jordan, Tyson, or Gretzky?
it’s gotta be Jordan for making the sport go global.
There are people in isolated villages in the jungles of asia that know the name Michael Jordan.
it’s hard to describe now, to an internet saturated world, just how POPULAR the man Michael Jordan was.
Before the internet, everyone knew him.
Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan might be the most famous people in the modern era
The economic impact that Jordan had is immeasurable. I would say that Tiger had more of an impact on getting more eyes on the sport but from a pure revenue standpoint MJ is unparalleled.
That being said they are the two most influential athletes in my lifetime, I’m 42.
On impacting their sport, probably Gretzky, in the world probably Jordan.
Not that Tyson or Woods had "smaller" impact, but it's a subjective question that requires ranking amazing people.
If you took away Gretzky's goals, he's still the all time points leader. They changed how the point positions are played and positioned because of his abilities. The spot behind your own net was called ""Gretzky's Office". Play styles, rules, and the pace of the game in general were impacted because of him.
The NHL didn't really go for personal sponsorships at the time (and still is rare), so he didn't impact that like Jordan and the NBA.
With woods, he's done amazing things, and definitely grew the sport and sponsorships for it, but his impact on the game of golf itself is minimal, he just had the God mode hack, and is a great business and showman.
Tyson again with the same as Woods, just God mode activated, which made him popular.
You acknowledged Woods grew the game, but Woods also brought real training and athleticism to golf. That might be the biggest way he has changed it.
But outside of their sport, agreed, it has to be Jordan. Tiger was never interested in doing things outside of golf. Jordan himself became a cultural icon, and built a brand that still is one. Gretzky and Tyson just didn't have the platform Jordan had.
>but his impact on the game of golf itself is minimal
I agree he's not as big as Jordan, but I don't think this statement is accurate. Course lengthening wasn't called "Tiger-Proofing" for no reason. He directly impacted the quality of athlete playing golf today by the way he trained and practiced. Tour guys couldn't keep up with him physically or mentally.
I agree with this answer in its entirety with one exception:
Woods significantly changed the way we view athleticism in golf. Sure, there were guys before him who made exercise part of their game (Tom Kite, Gary Player, etc.) but those guys did it at a time where the technology didn't allow them to highlight the advancements.
Tiger made it obvious with the modern drivers and balls that it was where the game was going. There's a reason everyone refers to the brass in Augusta making the golf course more difficult as "Tiger-proofing"
The late nineties early two thousand Tiger was literally in the hunt almost every weekend. JT, Johnson, Scottie, Rahm etc have only ever had stretches of maybe a year of great golf. He was unstoppable for a decade.
Scottie Scheffler recently finished a year with an adjusted scoring average of 68.63, the seventh-lowest in TOUR history Tiger has the next top-six spots on the all-time list (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2009)
Recent fan of golf here: Scottie has 10 tour wins in the last 4 years and it feels like the guys been absolutely rolling… tiger won his 73rd PGA tournament in 2008, just 12 years into his pro career. His pace was unfathomable. It’d be like if Scottie had won 25 events by now!
He literally created a new type of gambling. You could take him against the field and win on the regular. It was usually a pretty tough line like 1:2 or 3.
He was a big part of internet gambling getting off the ground. I would get promos (bet tiger at 2/1) for each tournament. They were seemingly horrible odds if you knew anything about gambling or golf, but he somehow kept defying them.
Woods owns a 55–4 record when holding at least a share of the lead after 54 holes, and 44–2 record when holding the outright lead
That's absolute insanity. Even the best of the best are like 50% at best of converting 54 holes leads to wins.
Wasn’t it a 6iron? I’ve been fortunate enough to play Glen Abbey a few times and definitely tried to recreate that shot…me and 2 friends were never able to do it..shocking lol.
It was a 6 iron, but it was 218y out of a bunker to a portion of the green about the size of a dinner plate, and his 6 iron was the same specs as the 6 iron Jack used in the 70's (so like a modern 8 or 9 iron, depending on the set.) Will forever be one of the most unbelievable shots in golf history.
2010-2012 he went cold. He had an incredible run in 2013 and won player of the year but then came more injuries.
The 2008 Achilles tear, the back problems 2014-2017, and then the bizarre car accident in 2021 are the three things that kept him from 20+ majors.
He stays healthy it might have been 25 with some luck. His resume stands despite literally losing 10 years of his prime golf.
Yea I'm old, but I still didn't really get to see prime Tiger.
I will say though when he won the Masters I had a 4 year old and I could not keep from getting choked up. I still get choked up when I see that replay of him going to hug Charlie, maybe one of the all time greatest moments in sports.
I'm 45 years old now and graduated high school in 97, the year he won his first Masters. There was a ton of hype when he won multiple US Amateurs in a row and talk of him having the potential to be the next Jack or Arnie. He played in his first Masters in 1997 and won by 12 strokes. This was mind blowing for obvious reasons. He then won the US Open in 2000 by 15 strokes, which was also the start to the Grand Slam of 4 majors in a row. I recall sports analysis shows, like Pardon My Take, having a weekly discussion about who would you take in this weekends PGA Tour event, Tiger or the field? If you put that into perspective, Scottie Scheffler is the #1 player in the world at the moment and wins a ton, but if you give me Scottie or the field in this weekend's Players, I'm taking the field without question. Back in the early 2000's, most people would have taken Tiger. Another staggering stat is he won 6 PGA Tour events in a row in 2006. During this stretch, 2000 - 2006, most people, aside from the older purists who will always think Jack is the GOAT, openly discussed how we were watching the greatest player who ever lived still in his prime. It was an amazing time to be a golf fan.
After he gouged one out of the thick rough on the 6th hole up to the green the announcer could only say "this is not a fair fight."
I believe that was in the first round too, and he was right.
I stood in that spot and tried to picture how a 7i (or any iron)would have not only a fighting chance to clear but also get in the green off that cut. It’s an absurd sight to look up at.
If you gave me a jumbo bucket of balls, a bag full of clubs and a gun to my head to replicate the shot; I wouldn’t even bother.
If Tiger hadn't shot that crazy score the golf media would have ripped the USGA to shreds for having such a difficult tournament setup. Second place was +3!
If you're talking about 97 - 00, I was still a little young, but the hype train was in full swing. He was still winning tournaments (and did win the 99 PGA) and was the favorite to win everything. He was a phenom in every sense of the word.
The only reasonable comparison I could make is to young Rory in terms of hype and complete domination except Tiger won everything and Rory fizzled out into "just a hall of fame caliber golfer".
Not so much in style of play but I really thought Spieth was gonna be the next Tiger when he had 3 majors by the time he was 23-24. His putting was otherworldly. Really hope he can win a PGA schip to complete the slam.
I was a little weird, because he became pro in 1996, won right away, destroyed at the Masters, then kind of faded away while he rebuilt his swing. He won a few times, but not in any dominating fashion. But from late 1999 on he just turned on the afterburners and dominated everything he entered.
Of course, most pros would kill to have a CAREER like his 1998-1999, but compared to later years they were mediocre.
David Duval was the #1 golfer in the world for like all of 1998 (he was well into his free fall by the time he won his Open). He was a Nike guy too but it didn't slow down the Tiger hype train
Another great stat, Tiger spent 281 consecutive weeks at #1. He was the best golfer in the world for over 5 years straight and it wasn’t close. His total weeks at #1 is 681. For perspective Scottie Scheffler who is currently #1 had a streak of 43 weeks. Total is 77 weeks.
Byron Nelson - 11
Tiger Woods - 7
Ben Hogan - 6
Tiger Woods - 6
And the pro I apprenticed under would scoff if I failed to mention that Byron actually won 13 straight in 1945, 2 of them just didn't meet the criteria to qualify as "official tour events" once they'd formed an actual tour 20 years later and had to decide which events did or didn't retroactively count towards for the record books. Was all the same guys he beat, a couple of them just didn't have big enough fields or purses to make the cut.
I’m 45 as well and agree with all of this. I saw Tiger at Deuetsche Bank outside of Boston early 2000’s I went to see him tee off on 1 and he hit a 2i absolute lazer and I had never seen anything like it. He swung so f’n hard it was incredible. He was such a big deal that I went and followed Vijay most of the day because he was 2 in the world but no one was watching him. 90% of the crowd was following Tiger. That 2i swing and sound has been etched in my brain. He fucking murdered it. He came out of his shoes. It was violent.
I also remember him hitting a putt in a major to beat Mark O’mara. On the last hole I think. It was several years into his prime but he was standing over this 25+ foot double breaker and everyone just “knew” he was going to hit it. It’s incredible to think about a putt like that and in your mind you’re thinking “more likely than not he makes it.”
The older "purists" that clung to Jack tended to reject Tiger for one particular quality he has, and it doesn't have anything to do with his golf game.
Even when he would be a few strokes back on Sunday, it was just like...
*Tiger made a 15 footer for birdie*
*Tiger stuck his approach 6 feet from the flag*
*Oh Tiger birdied and is now tied for the lead with 3 holes left*
It didn't even feel real when other golfers were winning because you just knew he was going to make his way to the top of the leaderboard somehow.
Except in the Majors.
I think it may be different now but for the first 10 or so Major wins, he was either tied for or held the outright lead after 54 holes.
Peak Tiger didn't fuck around in the Majors. He knew early on that he was going to win *and he made sure everyone else knew it, too.*
Yeah, you'd watch him show up in red on Sunday and just knew whoever was paired up with him was about to fall apart just trying to keep up. Tiger was inevitable.
This is why the 2019 Masters stands out because 1) it’s pretty recent and 2) it’s the only major where he came from behind to win. There was no way Tiger was going to hit it in the water on 12 when pretty much everyone else did in front of him. His level of focus was unparalleled amongst his peers.
Remember the “Tiger Roar” and the folklore around it? Guys would go into a Sunday a few shots ahead of him and then crumble under the pressure they felt when they heard the crowd roaring elsewhere on the course. Knowing that a roar that loud could only mean that the Big Cat was coming up from behind.
This is so interesting. I’ve watched Tiger tons on TV and heard the crowd going wild but never thought about how it would impact the field. Imagine standing over a 10ft putt and hearing that roar… that would be terrifying haha
You could hear it across the course.. deeeep, bellowing.. because the crowd knew.. 50% of the time something incredible was going to happen.. and it did.. over and over for years…
The reason people holler the moment the ball is struck in pro golf now.. BECAUSE of tiger. Everytime he struck the ball in big moments, you could hear the collective deep breath of the crowd immediately explode into awestruck “ooohs” which usually turned into pandemonium-like exhilaration because what he could do just didn’t make humanly sense. At all.
People were 30-40 humans DEEP on greens and 20-30 deep on fairways and any elevated hill or roller in his gallery. So you’re talking THOUSANDS of spectators.. puts modern day TPC Scottsdale 16th hole to shame even at it’s most raucous
Oooo that signature roar… if you were at ANY event and not following tiger in 2000’s or getting ahead to get a prime spot on a green..
If you heard that roar 2 holes back, dulled through the trees, like a freight train in the distance… but clear as day you knew, smiled and looked at the board to be updated to see how much tiger moved…
I can hear it to this day.. goosebumps
Federer in ‘04 to ‘08 had the same energy.
He was so disgustingly dominant that the US Open felt it was appropriate to play the Imperial March from Star Wars during one event when he walked onto the court.
When “The best comparison is Darth Vader”, that’s a pretty good metric for an athlete’s intimidation factor.
Tennis is 1 on 1 though, the best player in the field has a better opportunity to win. Golf isn’t about the best player winning every week, it’s who got the hottest over 72 holes.
Tiger was the best player and winning just as often as 143 other guys in the field combined
There's 143 guys out there. That's a lot of golf being played. A couple of them were bound to have their best round of the year or maybe their life on any given day. In most cases, it didn't really matter. Even on Tiger's worst day he was still gonna be right there in contention.
Tiger wearing red marching down the fairway on a Sunday felt very much like Darth Vader’s hallway scene in Rogue One. He was going to fuck you up in ways you couldn’t comprehend, and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. Real wizard shit.
And it wasn’t just an aura. He was almost always truly invincible. In the occasion he didn’t crush everyone he would clutch it out, you could just sense to a certainty that mid ranged putts he needed were going to fall.
Yeah, this is the big thing. Any time he was near the top of the leaderboard all of the players were in fear and especially his playing partners would fall apart.
This. Against de Marco you knew he would win, then goes long at 16. And chips it in! Same with mediate in the full 18 play off. Out of a fairway bunker with a broken leg you thought he was gone- hits the best shot ever. His will to win was unbelievable
There was a time that Vegas would give you even odds on Tiger Woods vs the field. Peak Tiger was the closest thing to a perfect golfer that we’ve ever seen. He won an Open Championship with only hitting 1 driver all week and avoided every single fairway bunker over 72 holes.
I don't remember exactly what tournament it was, but there was a graphic posted here a while ago that he was something like -150 odds pre-tournament. It's honestly not even conceivable to me to have negative odds in a golf tournament. Just for reference, Rahm is +750 right now to win the Masters and is the current betting favorite. It doesn't even seem real that someone could be that dominant against such a large field.
Not just Tiger's game but his workouts off the course too. Tiger actually got pro golfers to act like professional athletes and take exercise and nutrition seriously. According to him he would run and lift, go hit golf balls for hours, then run again and then go play another sport like basketball/tennis.
Since I had to look this up. For everyone else who was wondering like me: The way sports betting works:
**Negative Numbers**: "This is how much you need to bet to win 100." So -150 would mean for every $150 you bet, if Tiger won - you would win 100 or a 1:1.5 payout
**Positive Numbers**: "This is how much you will win if you bet 100." So +750 would mean for every $100 you bet, if Rahm won you would win $750 or a 7.5:1 payout.
He avoided 100% of the bunkers in his Open win at St.Andrews, not just the fairway bunkers. Every player has a walking scorer responsible for raking bunkers at The Open, the guy who drew Tiger that week had a front row seat and never once used the rake he carried.
There’s a nice table on wikipedia of his career summary that shows how many starts and wins he had per year. From 1999-2008 he won 1/3rd of all PGA starts he made. In 2006 he won 8 out of 15 tournament he played in, and in 2008 he won 4 out of 6.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Woods
It was borderline magical at times. He would routinely hit shots that other pros wouldn’t even think about. Guys in the booth would be genuinely confused about what he was about to do cuz they hadn’t seen it before. Especially in the early 00s before equipment started to level the field a bit and other guys were getting more into speed/strength training. You just did not see guys flog a 3i from 240 into a par 5 and have it land like a wedge shot. You weren’t supposed to do that.
And he just kept getting better. He’d have knee surgery or whatever and just come back and win by 5 again. Right before the whole scandal hit it really seemed like there was nothing stopping him from winning majors until he got bored with it.
was the consensus after all the family drama that he was “done for” atleast from a top performer perspective? even now i’m surprised he kept nike as a sponsor from then
A ton of jokes were made, it almost felt like he wasn’t going to come back from it or wouldn’t feel like he would want to. Tiger took a hiatus and fell to the 50s for world ranking. When he came back I think it took him 1 season to get back to #1 ranked for another year until the back injuries started.
This is just how dominant the guy was during the 2000s.
> **p**erspective? **e**ven **n**ow **i**’m **s**urprised
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it was genuinely shocking. the crash happened thanksgiving night, he took an “indefinite leave” and by christmas he had lost *every* sponsor except nike. it cost his sponsors **$15 billion** in stock value. it did feel like the palace collapsing. he came back at the masters and made a real go at it but phil won and it felt like “oh well, the armor is pierced, pre incident tiger never would have let phil get there.” anthony kim also went crazy at that masters. i don’t think most people thought “oh he’s completely done forever,” but it definitely felt like the end of an era.
Yeah, you'd see a shot, and the only thing you could think was,
>how the *fuck* did he do *that*?
It was like he was some kind of wizard that could make a golf ball do just unbelievable things.
I would equate it to watching a time traveler. Basically, Tiger took the persimmon/early metal wood era and then turned it into the game you watch on TV today. Pretty much singlehandedly.
Nowadays, nobody is particularly surprised when a top 10 or top 25 player in the world launches a 2 iron into the stratosphere from 250. Trackman tells you that's the best way to attack a par 5, what the launch window has to be to achieve it, and they stuff NASA tech into a hollow bodied utility iron to enable mortals to do it.
Tiger invented the style of play, but with titleist blade irons from the late 90s/early 2000s and a Balata ball. It's cliche, but it was literally not the same game of his contemporaries. He was creating the modern game.
If you watch clips of Tiger in the early 2000s, it doesn't look all that different compared to how the top 10 or 25 in the world play today from tee to green. What was remarkable was that he was 20 years ahead of his time for ballstriking AND by far the sharpest clutch putter of all time. It was like Scottie Scheffler, except he fucking made everything when it mattered.
it almost feels insulting to mention Scottie and Prime Tiger in the same sentence. No insult to Scottie, but he’s not even really in the same stratosphere
Not insulting at all to Tiger, Scottie's tee to green since start of 2023 has been statistically in the same ballpark as Tiger. Better or more dominant than 2000-2001 Tiger? No. But statistically actually not far off from 2006-2008 Tiger (the first years that SG metrics were kept).
You are not appreciating how good Scottie's ballstriking has been the last \~18 months. Scottie whooping everyone at Bay Hill last week was actually very reminiscent of many of Tiger's wins-- whooped the shit out of the field in ballstriking on a hard course and then paired it with great putting and all the sudden he's running away with the tournament.
Granted, Scottie's putting has been somewhere between bad and terrible for most of the last 18 months. Which was the key differentiator for Tiger-- he kicked everyone's ass tee to green, and then kicked ass on the greens when it mattered too.
But if Scottie keeps putting the way he did last week, it's not insulting to Tiger at all. Scottie is absolutely crushing fields right now tee to green.
Someone had a “hot take” on one of the NLU pods or something that captures it perfectly for me, nothing against Scottie but he’s won one major. Can we stop talking about him like he’s won 5?
It is WAY too early for Tiger comparisons. Career, He needs to stay on top of the OWGR for ten years straight to catch Tiger. He’s 70+ pro wins away. Peak, Tiger held all 4 majors plus the players at the same time. Scottie’s not close
I’ve never been so happy to respond to a comment.
I am a sports fanatic. Golf, baseball, football, soccer, basketball, etc. Give them all to me.
There are only two athletes I’ve ever seen come close to Tiger Woods, and they are Mike Tyson and Michael Jordan.
Tiger Woods struck fear into the heart of every one of his opponents. If he was anywhere near the lead, those ahead of him were under tremendous pressure to just hold on knowing full well he was coming, and if it was a major championship you could almost just forget about it. They heard the footsteps…the roars…and they knew what was coming.
Prime Tiger Woods was so much better than every one of his modern rivals that he literally skewed our perception of some other all time greats. How many more wins would Phil, Vijay, Ernie, Davis, Furyk, etc have if not for Tiger? These are all time greats but when stacking resume against resume, there is really no comparison.
He would hit balls so far out of play that you thought he was dead and never coming back, and then he’d rain a 247 yard 2 iron down with a twirling finish that stuck the middle of the green, plus then pay it off with the putt for birdie.
Simply put, he systematically dismantled the game of golf and drained the morale from each of his opponents, 1 by 1. Nicklaus has more majors…but 97-04 Tiger was the only golfer ever feared by all others. “It’s just not a fair fight,” was one of the most famous quotes of his time, and that summed it up.
He beat most of the other players before he hit his first shot. They knew he would pull off whatever shots he needed to pull off to win. As a fan, you knew he would win, no matter how far back he was and how poorly he may have been playing for the first few rounds. Need an eagle? No problem. 200 yard shot from a bunker, over water, with a 6 iron? Piece of cake. Slippery chip shot from the rough, breaking 90 degrees and tumbling downhill on an extra fast Augusta green? Easy pickings.
The stories are legendary. JB Holmes was 3 up with 5 to play...and lost 1up to Tiger, who hit 3 birdies and an eagle in the next 4 holes to take a lead. Stephen Ames talked a little trash and lost 9 and 8. 168 yard shot in the dark? Why not.
The crazy part is that he was so loose off the tee at times that he gave the other players a chance at times. If he had developed a fairway finder, he'd have won even more. The number of times he had to hit a hero shot to get back in play (which he usually pulled off, btw) may have limited his wins a bit, which is scary when you think about what he actually pulled off.
He literally changed pro golf into what it is today. Classic one is when he won the us open at pebble. No one else was under par and he was like -14. Pretty much would do the unthinkable all the time. The crazy part was that he did everything well. His putting, in my opinion, was the most impressive thing to watch. If he was in the lead, no one was catching him, if he had a sniff of the lead, he was going to win. He'd make putts from all over when he needed them. Just an incredible competitor, who could always get in the zone when he needed to and hit the shots required.
He also showed that physical fitness mattered. Many golfers changed their workout habits because of Tiger. He raised the level of play for the entire field which made golf more entertaining over the course of his prime.
Yeah i’ve heard about his fitness regiment, usually when Daly talks about it and how he beat him once while hungover or whatever. Still insane that it took that long for the golfers themselves to have caught on to physical fitness more before his time
The 2000 US Open at Pebble was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. That course was playing insanely hard all week and he was making it look like he was walking through practice rounds against high schoolers. People were struggling to get GIRs and he one-putted something like half of the holes through the first 2 rounds. It really can't be understated just how dominant he was.
He was -12, but 2nd place was +3, the other 150 best players in the world couldn't break par.
He statistically wasn't a putting leader, but he made more of the putts ***that he absolutely had to make*** than anyone in history not named Jack Nicklaus, they just haven't come up with a way to quantify that as it's own stat.
I can distinctly remember turning on golf tournaments, seeing tiger on top of the leaderboard and turning it off because I knew he was going to run away with it. I wish I had the presence of mind at that time to truly appreciate how great he was.
Yea this is what isn’t talked about as much now but golf actually became relatively boring to watch because tiger was always dominating. I remember always rooting against him and thinking he was conceited.
In hindsight, he was electric to watch. He’s my all time favorite golfer and I’ve rewatched every tournament he’s ever played. Not only was he the best of all time, he was insanely exciting to watch and has so many memorable moments it’s astounding.
But at the time I remember my dad and extended family talking about how the worst thing that can happen to a sport is already knowing who is going to win before it begins. I wish I knew how lucky I was to be watching a legend.
Felt the same way about Brady. I started to respect him after 2014, and when 2016 happened, I knew i was watching the greatest football player of all time
the hate turned into undeniable respect. that’s how it is. A Great doesn’t ask for respect, he forces you to admit it.
Yea a lot of people have that take. It's like watching Michael Jordan play and turn off the TV, watching Jeff Gordon race and turning off the TV, Tom Brady, Federer, Serena Williams, Mayweather, curry, etc. it's always crazy to me. How can you not enjoy watching the best just own it.
It was a given that he would be in contention every week. It’s kinda like Sheffler now always in it on Sunday , but Tiger would win a lot more. It was surprising when he didn’t win. We expected it.
just think of anytime you've seen someone noticeably better than everyone else around them perform something- it can be anything. It was like that - for years on end.
Tiger made golf an event, me and my dad and buddies would get together on Sundays to watch, especially in the majors. You were almost guaranteed to see something amazing. No one else has come close since.
Whenever the weekend rolled around and there was a golf tournament, SportsCenter in the morning would have a full 2 mins of coverage on yesterday's highlights of tigers round because he would have that many great shots. Then the presenter would say "and on to the rest of the field" where they would cover the highlights from everyone in less time.
Indescribable. He was beyond dominant. The way he carried himself on course from about 2000-2008 was not only ruthless and unforgiving, but borderline robotic. He would get in his opponent’s heads without saying a word (i.e. Steven Ames at the match play).
I feel so grateful to have been able to witness that mastery first hand as a young kid, and that’s the entire reason I ever picked up a club, as I know is the case for many folks my age.
He was different man, nobody will ever reach that level of consistent dominance. We saw shades of it with Jordan, Rory, JT, DJ etc and now Scottie is showing signs, but nobody will ever even come close.
The chip-in on 16 at the 2005 Masters is the single most memorable sports moment I’ve ever witnessed. There was no DVR or recording features back then so you had to be 100% glued to the TV so you didn’t miss a shot. My poor buddy was taking a dump while the chip-in happened. He missed out on history because of overactive bowels. Poor guy.
there's a bit of mythologizing Tiger where if you read people talk about him like this you'd think he never made a mistake. Like everyone remembers the chip-in at 16 but everyone forgets he then bogeyed 17 and 18. DiMarco lipped out his chip on the 18th, otherwise Tiger would have lost
It got almost annoying when he won PGAT events. He’d hang around near the top of the leaderboard, hang around on Sunday, then inevitably would make the critical 1-2 birdies on the back 9 to win by 1 over and over again. It’s a combo of him being ridiculously calm when the pressure is on, and others frankly not being able to keep up.
But in majors it was truly incredible to watch. He’d go into terminator mode with max focus and slowly and steadily wear people down. The 2006 Open at Hoylake is probably the best example of this….he famously only hit one drive for the whole week (Thursday), then decided to hit irons for the entire rest of the tournament and front run in complete control.
The best was the event at pebble where he was like…. I want to say 9 back with 7 to play?
Shot something like 5 or 6 under on those holes and the leader folded.
Edit: 7 back through 11 and went birdie, par, par, eagle, birdie, par, birdie to win. This was his 6th consecutive event win also.
If you’ve seen all the “moneyball” metrics around golf, it was like that personified. You didn’t have the math behind it, but could just tell every single shot he was gaining fractions of strokes on his competitors, and over the course of the round, you just knew he was going to smoke the field. Everyone knew it, everyone could watch it, and the rest of the field was playing for second.
I was in 8th grade in 99. My dad and uncle took me to Medinah on that Sunday of PGA. We followed him around all day and I just remember everything about him was total perfection. Routine, Swing, Pants, Shirt, Hat, Walk…everything. He looked fake. Just like MJ
My adjective is "transcendent." People who didn't give a shit about golf or sports in general started watching just to watch Tiger. He grew the game and he will be sorely missed when he's finally done. He single-handedly changed the perception that golf was an old rich white country club sport, and you can't discount his influence on future generations. I grew up in the 90s and knew plenty of kids who started golfing just because of Tiger. Same with parents who made their kids start golfing.
Another way to put it is like this: he won all the time and was still everyone's favorite. The comparisons to Michael Jordan's Bulls or The Avengers or whatever are appropriate.
Watching tiger in his prime was like watching a movie and all these unbelievable things happen and you're like "there's no way that this could happen in real life", except they were, and it happened what seemed like every tournament lol. Some of the best memories of my childhood was watching Tiger on Sundays with my dad. As far as I remember, there were a few conversations on whether Jack was better than Tiger, but Tiger was just on another level than Jack and I think most people knew that.
Imagine watching golf and it’s a legitimate bet to take Tiger vs. the field.
No one could dominate a Sunday like him. You watched Sundays when Tiger was in the lead to watch him crush the field. There is no one that played quite like him on the mentality front.
I worked at a hotel during a portion of Tigers prime.
People would come in and put our TV on just to catch some of Tiger as they were waiting for something or passing by.
I’ve never seen that happen for anything else.
The amazing, super artistic shots were memorable for sure; but often times, especially post-2005, he’d lap fields simply by just not making mistakes. If he hit a shot offline, he’d get it exactly where he knew he could make par or even birdie from. He was just insane at 5-10ft par saves, and seemed to always leave himself straight putts up the hill. The guys golf IQ was just so off the charts before you even consider the physical talent. Watch the highlights of the 2006 Open Championship at Hoylake to get an idea of the “master tactician” style that he adopted in the 2nd half of his more dominant years.
The most interesting thing to me about Tiger was what his father said about him. Tiger athletically was a fantastic golfer. There were other fantastic golfers he had to compete with. David Duval, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, etc. His father prior to him going pro said, "They won't know what him them. It's Tiger's mental makeup that will crush them."
He was right. Tiger was more mentally tough and psychologically resilient than any pro of his time. Lots of guys can hit the shots. None of them had what was between Tiger's ears.
It was honestly bizarre to watch. He was SO good, and SO much better than everyone else, that the oddsmakers would usually have him favoured vs the entire field of other competitors, and he often would prove those odds right.
The stats are just legendary, I can't remember exactly, but in majors over something like a 10 year span, he was over 200 strokes (!!!!) better, total aggregate across all rounds in majors for 10 years, better than the next closest (Mickleson). It defied explanation.
You would be watching, and be surprised when his shot didn't go in, or it didn't do what he expected.
He was like the Babe in baseball, ability to call his shots. He was so supremely confident in himself, and so supremely talented, that he would take on the hardest pins on the toughest holes, and regularly make birdie. 6' to the right of the pin is death? Meh, fire straight at it and stick it to 3'. His cojones were gigantic.
At first we didn't know just how good he'd be, but I remember watching him win his first Masters, and my dad saying "that's the greatest golfer you'll ever see, and you get to watch him as you grow up". Pretty cool.
Tiger Woods established dominance in the sport like nobody else had done before and like nobody else will likely ever do again:
* In 2023, Scotty Scheffler's scoring average of 68.629 was the seventh lowest season average on record since they began tracking the stats in 1988. The other six seasons ahead of his are all owned by Tiger Woods. *Two of those are under 68*.
* He is third all-time in European Tour wins with 41 wins. *He has never been a European Tour member*.
* He was eighth on the all-time PGA Tour win list with 46 wins and *he was still in his twenties*.
* He won the US Open *by fifteen shots*. He was at -12 and the runner up was Ernie Els at +3.
* He won the Masters by ten shots. *Winning by ten shots or more has only been accomplished twice since 1900, both by Tiger.*
* At one point Tiger held all four major trophies simultaneously, known as the Tiger Slam. on average, he beat the field in those events by 5 shots and *he was 86 shots better than the next nearest player.*
* He won 82 of 371 events. For his entire career, *he won almost a quarter of all the events he entered.*
* From 2005 to 2009, Tiger won 41% of the tournaments he played, *including six majors*.
* In the first 33 World Golf Championship events, against the strongest fields in golf, *Tiger won half of the events.*
* From 1997 to 213, Tiger was 126 strokes under par in Major championships. Among people with 90 or more round in majors, Steve Flesh is second in that regard, at 125 over par, three fewer strokes than Phil Mickelson at 18 over par. *That means Tiger was 256 strokes lower in majors than the next nearest competitor.*
* Tiger is the only player in the past 72 years to have a win streak of more than four consecutive PGA Tour events. *He has done it 3 times, with streaks of 7, 6, and 5 wins.*
* The World Golf Championship events and the Majors have the strongest fields in golf. *23 of Tiger's 82 wins have been against WGC or Masters fields.*
* Tiger has spent 683 weeks with the number one ranking. *You could add the next four nearest players together and he'd still be leading by 4 weeks.*
* Tiger went from turning professional to the world number 1 ranking in the world *in less than ten months*.
* Tiger's first missed cut came in Canada after only 26 professional events. It pissed him off, and *he didn't miss another cut for over eight years (142 events).*
* Tiger's 82 wins are tied with Sam Snead for most PGA Tour wins, but, without taking too much away from Snead's accomplishments, Tiger's 82 is the higher count. Why? Some of Snead's win total includes one 18-hole tournament, five team events, and five events with fields of 16 or fewer players. On a like-for-like basis, *Tiger's win total would be closer to 100 wins.*
* In the history of golf, there have only been eight major wins with scores of 18-under or better. *Five of those wins belong to Tiger*.
* With lead or tie for the lead or better, *Tiger has won 93% of the time.*
* When in a playoff for a victory, *Tiger has won 94% of the time.*
There will always be the GOAT debate, because Nicklaus won more majors, and Snead has (officially at least), won the same number of PGA Tour events. For anyone that understands the difference in golf between Tiger's era and Jack/Snead's era, just in terms of depth of field and international participation in the sport) there is no debate. Tiger is the GOAT. Jack won majors when there were eight guys who could win majors. Tiger won majors when there were 40 guys who could win majors.
Tiger made impossible shots seem mundane, difficult shots seem easy, and regular shots seem super easy. It wasn't that we watched for the everyday good Tiger, it was so we could see what he would pull off next.
Everyone knew he was special and we were watching greatness. Like watching Usain Bolt or michael Phelps at the Olympics, they were all just in their own league.
I liken it to what it was like watching Pedro Martinez pitch in his prime: When he was out there, at the very worst, you were going to see something really great. At the very best, something just wildly special. Either way it was an event.
Im 38. I watched him make sooo many 3-10 footers. He killed everyone, most of the time, except for the Ryder/President’s cups. I was always waiting for him to showcase his dominance in the team format. There’s a reason he still uses that Scotty Cameron GSS Pro Platinum, he’s made a ton of putts with it.
A lot of people cheered his long drives, etc. He did make Par 5’s look like long Par 4s.
But Tiger had the COMPLETE game. Long irons, Middle irons, Wedge play, Bunker play, Scrambling ability, Clutch factor (he could handle the pressure), Putting again. He was just must see tv everywhere he went.
I mean he won a British Open that had like 1000 bunkers and did not hit into one for 4 rounds (i think). How could I forget the low 2iron Stinger shots that flew like 270 in the air like a missle. Or how he used a steel shafted driver until like 2009. He could work the ball both ways left/right/up/down.
Tiger was so dominant, he makes Phil Mickelson seem like a lesser golfer instead of one of the greatest of all time.
I read an article that mentions how far Tiger would hit these new age drivers. Full stop, Tiger would be living at 200mph+ speed all day.
The "Tiger Effect" was real and was the focus of several case studies on the business of golf. It was like watching Michael Jordan during playoff season. The crowds surrounding him was insane.
Everybody hits far now, but *Augusta National* changed its course because of Tiger. Like MJ, the dude was just special, and you just expected him to win.
Kind of like watching Tom Brady and the Patriots. You almost knew they’d inevitably be in the playoffs and a chance to win it all.
Same with Tiger, you were asking yourself “Tiger or the field?”
I’m not “old” by any means I only got to really watch the tail end of his prime, I would watch it with my Grandpa, and he always said Tiger was the best golfer he’d ever seen and it wasn’t really close.
It was awe inspiring. You already knew he would win and you would feel bad for the people he was paired with on Sundays
“Sunday Tiger” was an experience.
It was the exact same feeling as watching Prime Jordan in the playoffs.
Some facts to put Tiger’s dominance into perspective.
At 34, Rory Mcilroy celebrated his 20th PGA tour win. When Tiger was 30, he’d had 70 PGA tour wins.
Rickie Fowler had 3 PGA Tour wins at age 27. Tiger had 34 at the same age.
It took Jordan Spieth 112 events to get his 10th win. Tiger took 63.
Dustin Johnson won his only major at age 31. At the same age, Tiger had won 12.
Ridiculous. There’ll never be anyone as good as him ever again.
Sunday red was appointment television. And bc he was always at the top of the leaderboard you could schedule your sunday plans/errands like you would a scheduled nfl game. Knowing that at worst you would miss the first few holes if running late but if you sat down around 2pm you were gonna be able to watch Tiger at his peak for 4 hours.
Similar to Scottie Scheffler right now in that Tiger was always the favorite in every tournament and it was always a serious possibility that he would win it no matter what other factor was involved.
Different than Scottie in that he was super intimidating to the field. There was an air of fear/respect in the interviews of all the other players.
Honestly the closest comparison I can think of is Mike Tyson in his prime. You just always knew he was going to knock the guy out as soon as he landed a punch. There was an inevitability to it.
Every time he played, he'd hit shots that you'd never seen anyone hit before.
Multiple times a round and you just expected them to go in.
When he broke out the 2 iron stinger and hit it farther than a lot of guys on tour hit 3 wood or driver. His chip in off the side of the green at Augusta. His charge to win the US Open with a single knee. I started playing because of Tiger, I’m 41 now, and I was fortunate enough to see him in person a couple of times. He was built different and played a completely different game than pretty much every other tour player. His power was amazing. He could muscle a 9 iron, today’s equivalent would be like a pitching wedge, 190 out of the first cut and it was like a dart. He had a Nike contract but had a performance clause, he could play whatever equipment he felt would help him win. Then you’ve got the crowds. I was at a Kapalua for the MB. There was a small crowd even for golf standards, and there would be 80% of the crowd following him or anticipating him coming and get set to watch. I was blessed to watch Gretzky, Jordan, and Tiger. Those three completely changed their respective sports, full stop.
Glad you called out Gretzky and Jordan. Tiger was right up there with them. He made golf so much more popular just by being out there (and being amazing while he was). I just wish I could have seen Muhammad Ali, Pele, and Babe Ruth in their prime, too.
Pele? You mean George Best right? Maradona Good, Pele Great, George Best.
George Best had the greatest quote ever.. "I spent a lot of money on Booze, Birds(women), and Fast cars...the rest I squandered.
He was full of them, another classic - "I used to go missing a lot... Miss Canada, Miss United Kingdom, Miss World."
I'm a sucker for a good pun (or a bad one).
Consider yourself lucky. You got to see Messi
If he can stay healthy we got Otani.
If he can sustain what he is doing he will revolutionize the game the way tiger did. Right now, ball players all over the world are studying Ohtani trying to figure out how he is able to do what he does.
I grew up playing and loosely following baseball but haven’t been interested in the MLB for 15ish years. What exactly is he doing so differently? I thought he isn’t expected to pitch with this new contract.
He isn’t going to pitch in 2024, but should moving forward. He’s an ace and clean up hitter with good enough speed to steal some bags. We’ve literally never seen a player like him before.
And now he's with an organization that's not allergic to winning!
Tyson. You can’t leave out Mike Tyson.
For sure. Tyson in the 80's was just on another level. The man was peak at so many things.
Relatively few people actually “saw” Ali in most of his fights. Most of the ones in the 1970s were pay-per-view live only on closed-circuit TV, sort of a precursor of cable, which was expensive back then for middle class folks
I’ve always been curious of who was more impactful in their respective sport, but also on the generation on the whole: Woods, Jordan, Tyson, or Gretzky?
Has to be Jordan for his clothing and shoes
it’s gotta be Jordan for making the sport go global. There are people in isolated villages in the jungles of asia that know the name Michael Jordan. it’s hard to describe now, to an internet saturated world, just how POPULAR the man Michael Jordan was. Before the internet, everyone knew him. Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan might be the most famous people in the modern era
I'd agree but tiger is up there.
The economic impact that Jordan had is immeasurable. I would say that Tiger had more of an impact on getting more eyes on the sport but from a pure revenue standpoint MJ is unparalleled. That being said they are the two most influential athletes in my lifetime, I’m 42.
On impacting their sport, probably Gretzky, in the world probably Jordan. Not that Tyson or Woods had "smaller" impact, but it's a subjective question that requires ranking amazing people. If you took away Gretzky's goals, he's still the all time points leader. They changed how the point positions are played and positioned because of his abilities. The spot behind your own net was called ""Gretzky's Office". Play styles, rules, and the pace of the game in general were impacted because of him. The NHL didn't really go for personal sponsorships at the time (and still is rare), so he didn't impact that like Jordan and the NBA. With woods, he's done amazing things, and definitely grew the sport and sponsorships for it, but his impact on the game of golf itself is minimal, he just had the God mode hack, and is a great business and showman. Tyson again with the same as Woods, just God mode activated, which made him popular.
You acknowledged Woods grew the game, but Woods also brought real training and athleticism to golf. That might be the biggest way he has changed it. But outside of their sport, agreed, it has to be Jordan. Tiger was never interested in doing things outside of golf. Jordan himself became a cultural icon, and built a brand that still is one. Gretzky and Tyson just didn't have the platform Jordan had.
>but his impact on the game of golf itself is minimal I agree he's not as big as Jordan, but I don't think this statement is accurate. Course lengthening wasn't called "Tiger-Proofing" for no reason. He directly impacted the quality of athlete playing golf today by the way he trained and practiced. Tour guys couldn't keep up with him physically or mentally.
I agree with this answer in its entirety with one exception: Woods significantly changed the way we view athleticism in golf. Sure, there were guys before him who made exercise part of their game (Tom Kite, Gary Player, etc.) but those guys did it at a time where the technology didn't allow them to highlight the advancements. Tiger made it obvious with the modern drivers and balls that it was where the game was going. There's a reason everyone refers to the brass in Augusta making the golf course more difficult as "Tiger-proofing"
This is the right answer. Gretzky's records are absolutely wild.
Fastest to 1000 points. Gretzky. Second fastest, also Gretzky, with like 8 more games required to achieve the feat compared to the first go.
Also you never expected him to lose. Like literally every tournament if he wasn’t winning, he was close. It was pure dominance
The late nineties early two thousand Tiger was literally in the hunt almost every weekend. JT, Johnson, Scottie, Rahm etc have only ever had stretches of maybe a year of great golf. He was unstoppable for a decade.
Scottie Scheffler recently finished a year with an adjusted scoring average of 68.63, the seventh-lowest in TOUR history Tiger has the next top-six spots on the all-time list (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2009)
And that was a heck of a year Scottie had!
Recent fan of golf here: Scottie has 10 tour wins in the last 4 years and it feels like the guys been absolutely rolling… tiger won his 73rd PGA tournament in 2008, just 12 years into his pro career. His pace was unfathomable. It’d be like if Scottie had won 25 events by now!
He literally created a new type of gambling. You could take him against the field and win on the regular. It was usually a pretty tough line like 1:2 or 3.
He was a big part of internet gambling getting off the ground. I would get promos (bet tiger at 2/1) for each tournament. They were seemingly horrible odds if you knew anything about gambling or golf, but he somehow kept defying them.
Woods owns a 55–4 record when holding at least a share of the lead after 54 holes, and 44–2 record when holding the outright lead That's absolute insanity. Even the best of the best are like 50% at best of converting 54 holes leads to wins.
I believe he was undefeated until after 2008 when he lost his invincibility.
We already knew the result, we just watched to see how he did it.
7 iron out of a bunker in the 2000 RBC open was a shot I'll never forget.
Wasn’t it a 6iron? I’ve been fortunate enough to play Glen Abbey a few times and definitely tried to recreate that shot…me and 2 friends were never able to do it..shocking lol.
6i with the loft of a modern 9i.
It was a 6 iron, but it was 218y out of a bunker to a portion of the green about the size of a dinner plate, and his 6 iron was the same specs as the 6 iron Jack used in the 70's (so like a modern 8 or 9 iron, depending on the set.) Will forever be one of the most unbelievable shots in golf history.
it was a 6i.
It’s so wild that this isn’t modern day hyperbole. This is why the ratings were insane because every round you might see something new.
It was must watch TV for anyone who enjoyed sports or athletics. And it was usually a Sunday afternoon.
Dude got hot at the 97 Masters and didn’t get cold until the mid 2010s
2010-2012 he went cold. He had an incredible run in 2013 and won player of the year but then came more injuries. The 2008 Achilles tear, the back problems 2014-2017, and then the bizarre car accident in 2021 are the three things that kept him from 20+ majors. He stays healthy it might have been 25 with some luck. His resume stands despite literally losing 10 years of his prime golf.
I don’t think 2008 was an Achilles tear, I think it was a broken leg/knee probably caused by navy seal training. I could be wrong about that
Yea I'm old, but I still didn't really get to see prime Tiger. I will say though when he won the Masters I had a 4 year old and I could not keep from getting choked up. I still get choked up when I see that replay of him going to hug Charlie, maybe one of the all time greatest moments in sports.
Ive watched the final round of the 2019 masters at least thrice a year since it happened. I still get goosebumps!
And with the shots were the roars of the crowd. It could be a Friday at the Buick Invitational and the crowds would be going nuts.
I'm 45 years old now and graduated high school in 97, the year he won his first Masters. There was a ton of hype when he won multiple US Amateurs in a row and talk of him having the potential to be the next Jack or Arnie. He played in his first Masters in 1997 and won by 12 strokes. This was mind blowing for obvious reasons. He then won the US Open in 2000 by 15 strokes, which was also the start to the Grand Slam of 4 majors in a row. I recall sports analysis shows, like Pardon My Take, having a weekly discussion about who would you take in this weekends PGA Tour event, Tiger or the field? If you put that into perspective, Scottie Scheffler is the #1 player in the world at the moment and wins a ton, but if you give me Scottie or the field in this weekend's Players, I'm taking the field without question. Back in the early 2000's, most people would have taken Tiger. Another staggering stat is he won 6 PGA Tour events in a row in 2006. During this stretch, 2000 - 2006, most people, aside from the older purists who will always think Jack is the GOAT, openly discussed how we were watching the greatest player who ever lived still in his prime. It was an amazing time to be a golf fan.
>He played in his first Masters in 1997 and won by 12 strokes. After shooting 40 on the first 9 holes.
And that 15 stroke victory in 2000 was with a triple on the card.
Not a single other golfer was under par and he was -12…unbelievable.
After he gouged one out of the thick rough on the 6th hole up to the green the announcer could only say "this is not a fair fight." I believe that was in the first round too, and he was right.
Yes and it was a seven iron uphill from like 200 yards
I stood in that spot and tried to picture how a 7i (or any iron)would have not only a fighting chance to clear but also get in the green off that cut. It’s an absurd sight to look up at. If you gave me a jumbo bucket of balls, a bag full of clubs and a gun to my head to replicate the shot; I wouldn’t even bother.
https://youtu.be/ygcgjlxUk58?si=aq4YEIEEZgoxYZwr
Haha wow that makes it even crazier than I thought.
If Tiger hadn't shot that crazy score the golf media would have ripped the USGA to shreds for having such a difficult tournament setup. Second place was +3!
This is the fact that gets me
What was it like between the Open and the Masters? Like during that 3 - year gap what was the narrative?
If you're talking about 97 - 00, I was still a little young, but the hype train was in full swing. He was still winning tournaments (and did win the 99 PGA) and was the favorite to win everything. He was a phenom in every sense of the word. The only reasonable comparison I could make is to young Rory in terms of hype and complete domination except Tiger won everything and Rory fizzled out into "just a hall of fame caliber golfer".
Not so much in style of play but I really thought Spieth was gonna be the next Tiger when he had 3 majors by the time he was 23-24. His putting was otherworldly. Really hope he can win a PGA schip to complete the slam.
I was a little weird, because he became pro in 1996, won right away, destroyed at the Masters, then kind of faded away while he rebuilt his swing. He won a few times, but not in any dominating fashion. But from late 1999 on he just turned on the afterburners and dominated everything he entered. Of course, most pros would kill to have a CAREER like his 1998-1999, but compared to later years they were mediocre.
It is so nuts that he dominated at the Masters at then, at such a young age, knew he should rebuild his swing so he could truly dominate.
David Duval was the #1 golfer in the world for like all of 1998 (he was well into his free fall by the time he won his Open). He was a Nike guy too but it didn't slow down the Tiger hype train
Lucky he didn’t get cut from his JV team
To me that's the most amazing thing. He started 4 over on his first nine, and STILL won by 12 shots. Absolutely nuts.
And shooting 30 on the back nine for a 70 on the first day.
Core memory and goosebumps unlocked.
Another great stat, Tiger spent 281 consecutive weeks at #1. He was the best golfer in the world for over 5 years straight and it wasn’t close. His total weeks at #1 is 681. For perspective Scottie Scheffler who is currently #1 had a streak of 43 weeks. Total is 77 weeks.
I think I read that Scheffler will need to stay at #1 constantly from now until 2035 to catch up with Tiger
He also won 7 events in a row. And 5 events in a row I believe at least twice.
I think 3 players have ever won 5 times in row. Tiger, Tiger, and Tiger.
Byron Nelson won 11 in a row. And that’s from memory. But yes tiger has like… 5-6 of the top 10 consecutive event streaks by himself.
Byron Nelson - 11 Tiger Woods - 7 Ben Hogan - 6 Tiger Woods - 6 And the pro I apprenticed under would scoff if I failed to mention that Byron actually won 13 straight in 1945, 2 of them just didn't meet the criteria to qualify as "official tour events" once they'd formed an actual tour 20 years later and had to decide which events did or didn't retroactively count towards for the record books. Was all the same guys he beat, a couple of them just didn't have big enough fields or purses to make the cut.
FYI….Tiger did play Masters in ‘95 and ‘96.
First as a pro I think he means
I’m 45 as well and agree with all of this. I saw Tiger at Deuetsche Bank outside of Boston early 2000’s I went to see him tee off on 1 and he hit a 2i absolute lazer and I had never seen anything like it. He swung so f’n hard it was incredible. He was such a big deal that I went and followed Vijay most of the day because he was 2 in the world but no one was watching him. 90% of the crowd was following Tiger. That 2i swing and sound has been etched in my brain. He fucking murdered it. He came out of his shoes. It was violent.
I remember Tiger or the field!
I also remember him hitting a putt in a major to beat Mark O’mara. On the last hole I think. It was several years into his prime but he was standing over this 25+ foot double breaker and everyone just “knew” he was going to hit it. It’s incredible to think about a putt like that and in your mind you’re thinking “more likely than not he makes it.”
What was it like watching Pardon My Take in 2001? Did Big Cat chug a zillion beers and was PFT on all the drugs? 🤪
That stretch 2000-2006 is the greatest golf played by anyone. Ever. Will not be beaten.
Back when they had the streak pick em thing on ESPN, often times an option was “who will win in pga this week, tiger or the field ?”
The older "purists" that clung to Jack tended to reject Tiger for one particular quality he has, and it doesn't have anything to do with his golf game.
It's because he's Asian, isn't it?
He had an aura of invincibility. Never seen it before and haven't seen it since.
Even when he would be a few strokes back on Sunday, it was just like... *Tiger made a 15 footer for birdie* *Tiger stuck his approach 6 feet from the flag* *Oh Tiger birdied and is now tied for the lead with 3 holes left* It didn't even feel real when other golfers were winning because you just knew he was going to make his way to the top of the leaderboard somehow.
Except in the Majors. I think it may be different now but for the first 10 or so Major wins, he was either tied for or held the outright lead after 54 holes. Peak Tiger didn't fuck around in the Majors. He knew early on that he was going to win *and he made sure everyone else knew it, too.*
Yeah, you'd watch him show up in red on Sunday and just knew whoever was paired up with him was about to fall apart just trying to keep up. Tiger was inevitable.
This is why the 2019 Masters stands out because 1) it’s pretty recent and 2) it’s the only major where he came from behind to win. There was no way Tiger was going to hit it in the water on 12 when pretty much everyone else did in front of him. His level of focus was unparalleled amongst his peers.
Remember the “Tiger Roar” and the folklore around it? Guys would go into a Sunday a few shots ahead of him and then crumble under the pressure they felt when they heard the crowd roaring elsewhere on the course. Knowing that a roar that loud could only mean that the Big Cat was coming up from behind.
This is so interesting. I’ve watched Tiger tons on TV and heard the crowd going wild but never thought about how it would impact the field. Imagine standing over a 10ft putt and hearing that roar… that would be terrifying haha
You could hear it across the course.. deeeep, bellowing.. because the crowd knew.. 50% of the time something incredible was going to happen.. and it did.. over and over for years… The reason people holler the moment the ball is struck in pro golf now.. BECAUSE of tiger. Everytime he struck the ball in big moments, you could hear the collective deep breath of the crowd immediately explode into awestruck “ooohs” which usually turned into pandemonium-like exhilaration because what he could do just didn’t make humanly sense. At all. People were 30-40 humans DEEP on greens and 20-30 deep on fairways and any elevated hill or roller in his gallery. So you’re talking THOUSANDS of spectators.. puts modern day TPC Scottsdale 16th hole to shame even at it’s most raucous
Oooo that signature roar… if you were at ANY event and not following tiger in 2000’s or getting ahead to get a prime spot on a green.. If you heard that roar 2 holes back, dulled through the trees, like a freight train in the distance… but clear as day you knew, smiled and looked at the board to be updated to see how much tiger moved… I can hear it to this day.. goosebumps
Federer in ‘04 to ‘08 had the same energy. He was so disgustingly dominant that the US Open felt it was appropriate to play the Imperial March from Star Wars during one event when he walked onto the court. When “The best comparison is Darth Vader”, that’s a pretty good metric for an athlete’s intimidation factor.
Tennis is 1 on 1 though, the best player in the field has a better opportunity to win. Golf isn’t about the best player winning every week, it’s who got the hottest over 72 holes. Tiger was the best player and winning just as often as 143 other guys in the field combined
There's 143 guys out there. That's a lot of golf being played. A couple of them were bound to have their best round of the year or maybe their life on any given day. In most cases, it didn't really matter. Even on Tiger's worst day he was still gonna be right there in contention.
Tiger wearing red marching down the fairway on a Sunday felt very much like Darth Vader’s hallway scene in Rogue One. He was going to fuck you up in ways you couldn’t comprehend, and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. Real wizard shit.
Other players would know every time Tiger made birdie. You could hear the roar across the entire course.
And it wasn’t just an aura. He was almost always truly invincible. In the occasion he didn’t crush everyone he would clutch it out, you could just sense to a certainty that mid ranged putts he needed were going to fall.
The U.S. Open putt to tie Rocco on the 18th in the final round comes to mind. It was like 18-20ft but you just knew he was gonna sink it!
Yeah, this is the big thing. Any time he was near the top of the leaderboard all of the players were in fear and especially his playing partners would fall apart.
This. Against de Marco you knew he would win, then goes long at 16. And chips it in! Same with mediate in the full 18 play off. Out of a fairway bunker with a broken leg you thought he was gone- hits the best shot ever. His will to win was unbelievable
There was a time that Vegas would give you even odds on Tiger Woods vs the field. Peak Tiger was the closest thing to a perfect golfer that we’ve ever seen. He won an Open Championship with only hitting 1 driver all week and avoided every single fairway bunker over 72 holes.
I don't remember exactly what tournament it was, but there was a graphic posted here a while ago that he was something like -150 odds pre-tournament. It's honestly not even conceivable to me to have negative odds in a golf tournament. Just for reference, Rahm is +750 right now to win the Masters and is the current betting favorite. It doesn't even seem real that someone could be that dominant against such a large field.
Tiger is the reason the current pro golf is so incredibly deep in talent.
Exactly. All of the Hovlands, Schauffeles, Shefflers, and JTs of this new era of golfer grew up with Tiger’s game.
Not just Tiger's game but his workouts off the course too. Tiger actually got pro golfers to act like professional athletes and take exercise and nutrition seriously. According to him he would run and lift, go hit golf balls for hours, then run again and then go play another sport like basketball/tennis.
Since I had to look this up. For everyone else who was wondering like me: The way sports betting works: **Negative Numbers**: "This is how much you need to bet to win 100." So -150 would mean for every $150 you bet, if Tiger won - you would win 100 or a 1:1.5 payout **Positive Numbers**: "This is how much you will win if you bet 100." So +750 would mean for every $100 you bet, if Rahm won you would win $750 or a 7.5:1 payout.
He avoided 100% of the bunkers in his Open win at St.Andrews, not just the fairway bunkers. Every player has a walking scorer responsible for raking bunkers at The Open, the guy who drew Tiger that week had a front row seat and never once used the rake he carried.
There’s a nice table on wikipedia of his career summary that shows how many starts and wins he had per year. From 1999-2008 he won 1/3rd of all PGA starts he made. In 2006 he won 8 out of 15 tournament he played in, and in 2008 he won 4 out of 6. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Woods
It was borderline magical at times. He would routinely hit shots that other pros wouldn’t even think about. Guys in the booth would be genuinely confused about what he was about to do cuz they hadn’t seen it before. Especially in the early 00s before equipment started to level the field a bit and other guys were getting more into speed/strength training. You just did not see guys flog a 3i from 240 into a par 5 and have it land like a wedge shot. You weren’t supposed to do that. And he just kept getting better. He’d have knee surgery or whatever and just come back and win by 5 again. Right before the whole scandal hit it really seemed like there was nothing stopping him from winning majors until he got bored with it.
was the consensus after all the family drama that he was “done for” atleast from a top performer perspective? even now i’m surprised he kept nike as a sponsor from then
A ton of jokes were made, it almost felt like he wasn’t going to come back from it or wouldn’t feel like he would want to. Tiger took a hiatus and fell to the 50s for world ranking. When he came back I think it took him 1 season to get back to #1 ranked for another year until the back injuries started. This is just how dominant the guy was during the 2000s.
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it was genuinely shocking. the crash happened thanksgiving night, he took an “indefinite leave” and by christmas he had lost *every* sponsor except nike. it cost his sponsors **$15 billion** in stock value. it did feel like the palace collapsing. he came back at the masters and made a real go at it but phil won and it felt like “oh well, the armor is pierced, pre incident tiger never would have let phil get there.” anthony kim also went crazy at that masters. i don’t think most people thought “oh he’s completely done forever,” but it definitely felt like the end of an era.
Yeah, you'd see a shot, and the only thing you could think was, >how the *fuck* did he do *that*? It was like he was some kind of wizard that could make a golf ball do just unbelievable things.
I would equate it to watching a time traveler. Basically, Tiger took the persimmon/early metal wood era and then turned it into the game you watch on TV today. Pretty much singlehandedly. Nowadays, nobody is particularly surprised when a top 10 or top 25 player in the world launches a 2 iron into the stratosphere from 250. Trackman tells you that's the best way to attack a par 5, what the launch window has to be to achieve it, and they stuff NASA tech into a hollow bodied utility iron to enable mortals to do it. Tiger invented the style of play, but with titleist blade irons from the late 90s/early 2000s and a Balata ball. It's cliche, but it was literally not the same game of his contemporaries. He was creating the modern game. If you watch clips of Tiger in the early 2000s, it doesn't look all that different compared to how the top 10 or 25 in the world play today from tee to green. What was remarkable was that he was 20 years ahead of his time for ballstriking AND by far the sharpest clutch putter of all time. It was like Scottie Scheffler, except he fucking made everything when it mattered.
it almost feels insulting to mention Scottie and Prime Tiger in the same sentence. No insult to Scottie, but he’s not even really in the same stratosphere
Not insulting at all to Tiger, Scottie's tee to green since start of 2023 has been statistically in the same ballpark as Tiger. Better or more dominant than 2000-2001 Tiger? No. But statistically actually not far off from 2006-2008 Tiger (the first years that SG metrics were kept). You are not appreciating how good Scottie's ballstriking has been the last \~18 months. Scottie whooping everyone at Bay Hill last week was actually very reminiscent of many of Tiger's wins-- whooped the shit out of the field in ballstriking on a hard course and then paired it with great putting and all the sudden he's running away with the tournament. Granted, Scottie's putting has been somewhere between bad and terrible for most of the last 18 months. Which was the key differentiator for Tiger-- he kicked everyone's ass tee to green, and then kicked ass on the greens when it mattered too. But if Scottie keeps putting the way he did last week, it's not insulting to Tiger at all. Scottie is absolutely crushing fields right now tee to green.
Someone had a “hot take” on one of the NLU pods or something that captures it perfectly for me, nothing against Scottie but he’s won one major. Can we stop talking about him like he’s won 5? It is WAY too early for Tiger comparisons. Career, He needs to stay on top of the OWGR for ten years straight to catch Tiger. He’s 70+ pro wins away. Peak, Tiger held all 4 majors plus the players at the same time. Scottie’s not close
I’ve never been so happy to respond to a comment. I am a sports fanatic. Golf, baseball, football, soccer, basketball, etc. Give them all to me. There are only two athletes I’ve ever seen come close to Tiger Woods, and they are Mike Tyson and Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods struck fear into the heart of every one of his opponents. If he was anywhere near the lead, those ahead of him were under tremendous pressure to just hold on knowing full well he was coming, and if it was a major championship you could almost just forget about it. They heard the footsteps…the roars…and they knew what was coming. Prime Tiger Woods was so much better than every one of his modern rivals that he literally skewed our perception of some other all time greats. How many more wins would Phil, Vijay, Ernie, Davis, Furyk, etc have if not for Tiger? These are all time greats but when stacking resume against resume, there is really no comparison. He would hit balls so far out of play that you thought he was dead and never coming back, and then he’d rain a 247 yard 2 iron down with a twirling finish that stuck the middle of the green, plus then pay it off with the putt for birdie. Simply put, he systematically dismantled the game of golf and drained the morale from each of his opponents, 1 by 1. Nicklaus has more majors…but 97-04 Tiger was the only golfer ever feared by all others. “It’s just not a fair fight,” was one of the most famous quotes of his time, and that summed it up.
He beat most of the other players before he hit his first shot. They knew he would pull off whatever shots he needed to pull off to win. As a fan, you knew he would win, no matter how far back he was and how poorly he may have been playing for the first few rounds. Need an eagle? No problem. 200 yard shot from a bunker, over water, with a 6 iron? Piece of cake. Slippery chip shot from the rough, breaking 90 degrees and tumbling downhill on an extra fast Augusta green? Easy pickings. The stories are legendary. JB Holmes was 3 up with 5 to play...and lost 1up to Tiger, who hit 3 birdies and an eagle in the next 4 holes to take a lead. Stephen Ames talked a little trash and lost 9 and 8. 168 yard shot in the dark? Why not. The crazy part is that he was so loose off the tee at times that he gave the other players a chance at times. If he had developed a fairway finder, he'd have won even more. The number of times he had to hit a hero shot to get back in play (which he usually pulled off, btw) may have limited his wins a bit, which is scary when you think about what he actually pulled off.
He literally changed pro golf into what it is today. Classic one is when he won the us open at pebble. No one else was under par and he was like -14. Pretty much would do the unthinkable all the time. The crazy part was that he did everything well. His putting, in my opinion, was the most impressive thing to watch. If he was in the lead, no one was catching him, if he had a sniff of the lead, he was going to win. He'd make putts from all over when he needed them. Just an incredible competitor, who could always get in the zone when he needed to and hit the shots required.
He also showed that physical fitness mattered. Many golfers changed their workout habits because of Tiger. He raised the level of play for the entire field which made golf more entertaining over the course of his prime.
I have a funny video from like 2006 where Tiger hits a tee shot and walks out of frame and Angel Cabrera walks in frame with his Wario physique.
He effectively eliminated short hitters. Guys like Justin Leonard and Corey Pavin were hurt a lot more by courses getting “Tigerproofed” than Tiger.
Exactly why you see jacked up guys like Koepka nowadays. Tiger is the reason Mcllroy was able to drive the 10th at Bay Hill.
Yeah i’ve heard about his fitness regiment, usually when Daly talks about it and how he beat him once while hungover or whatever. Still insane that it took that long for the golfers themselves to have caught on to physical fitness more before his time
I read a comment somewhere that watching the '97 masters was "like watching a bunch of middle aged dads and Tiger."
It wasn’t ’like’ that, it pretty much literally WAS that
The 2000 US Open at Pebble was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. That course was playing insanely hard all week and he was making it look like he was walking through practice rounds against high schoolers. People were struggling to get GIRs and he one-putted something like half of the holes through the first 2 rounds. It really can't be understated just how dominant he was.
He was -12, but 2nd place was +3, the other 150 best players in the world couldn't break par. He statistically wasn't a putting leader, but he made more of the putts ***that he absolutely had to make*** than anyone in history not named Jack Nicklaus, they just haven't come up with a way to quantify that as it's own stat.
If he was average at everything else but could putt as well as he did he still would’ve won a ton.
I can distinctly remember turning on golf tournaments, seeing tiger on top of the leaderboard and turning it off because I knew he was going to run away with it. I wish I had the presence of mind at that time to truly appreciate how great he was.
Yeah I remember feeling it was over if he was leading after 54. And it was. But I also watched because I was a young fan boy.
Yea this is what isn’t talked about as much now but golf actually became relatively boring to watch because tiger was always dominating. I remember always rooting against him and thinking he was conceited. In hindsight, he was electric to watch. He’s my all time favorite golfer and I’ve rewatched every tournament he’s ever played. Not only was he the best of all time, he was insanely exciting to watch and has so many memorable moments it’s astounding. But at the time I remember my dad and extended family talking about how the worst thing that can happen to a sport is already knowing who is going to win before it begins. I wish I knew how lucky I was to be watching a legend.
Felt the same way about Brady. I started to respect him after 2014, and when 2016 happened, I knew i was watching the greatest football player of all time the hate turned into undeniable respect. that’s how it is. A Great doesn’t ask for respect, he forces you to admit it.
Yea a lot of people have that take. It's like watching Michael Jordan play and turn off the TV, watching Jeff Gordon race and turning off the TV, Tom Brady, Federer, Serena Williams, Mayweather, curry, etc. it's always crazy to me. How can you not enjoy watching the best just own it.
It was a given that he would be in contention every week. It’s kinda like Sheffler now always in it on Sunday , but Tiger would win a lot more. It was surprising when he didn’t win. We expected it.
It would take Scottie 12 consecutive years of staying at #1 on the OWGR for him to have as much time in that spot that Tiger did.
just think of anytime you've seen someone noticeably better than everyone else around them perform something- it can be anything. It was like that - for years on end.
It’s probably like being a baseball fan and watching Ruth clobber 60 homers while the next closest guy had 15.
Tiger made golf an event, me and my dad and buddies would get together on Sundays to watch, especially in the majors. You were almost guaranteed to see something amazing. No one else has come close since.
Yeah, last round of a mayor was unmissable in those years.
Watching Tiger on Sundays with my dad are some of my best memories. When I see Tiger golf today, I remember my dad, and that makes me happy,
On thing you could count on was flipping on sportscenter and the golf highlights would all be tiger.
Whenever the weekend rolled around and there was a golf tournament, SportsCenter in the morning would have a full 2 mins of coverage on yesterday's highlights of tigers round because he would have that many great shots. Then the presenter would say "and on to the rest of the field" where they would cover the highlights from everyone in less time.
Indescribable. He was beyond dominant. The way he carried himself on course from about 2000-2008 was not only ruthless and unforgiving, but borderline robotic. He would get in his opponent’s heads without saying a word (i.e. Steven Ames at the match play). I feel so grateful to have been able to witness that mastery first hand as a young kid, and that’s the entire reason I ever picked up a club, as I know is the case for many folks my age. He was different man, nobody will ever reach that level of consistent dominance. We saw shades of it with Jordan, Rory, JT, DJ etc and now Scottie is showing signs, but nobody will ever even come close.
Tiger, along with Gretzy and Jordan are the three greatest North American athletes of all time
The chip-in on 16 at the 2005 Masters is the single most memorable sports moment I’ve ever witnessed. There was no DVR or recording features back then so you had to be 100% glued to the TV so you didn’t miss a shot. My poor buddy was taking a dump while the chip-in happened. He missed out on history because of overactive bowels. Poor guy.
PAR, FIR, GIR, IBS, FML
there's a bit of mythologizing Tiger where if you read people talk about him like this you'd think he never made a mistake. Like everyone remembers the chip-in at 16 but everyone forgets he then bogeyed 17 and 18. DiMarco lipped out his chip on the 18th, otherwise Tiger would have lost
It got almost annoying when he won PGAT events. He’d hang around near the top of the leaderboard, hang around on Sunday, then inevitably would make the critical 1-2 birdies on the back 9 to win by 1 over and over again. It’s a combo of him being ridiculously calm when the pressure is on, and others frankly not being able to keep up. But in majors it was truly incredible to watch. He’d go into terminator mode with max focus and slowly and steadily wear people down. The 2006 Open at Hoylake is probably the best example of this….he famously only hit one drive for the whole week (Thursday), then decided to hit irons for the entire rest of the tournament and front run in complete control.
The best was the event at pebble where he was like…. I want to say 9 back with 7 to play? Shot something like 5 or 6 under on those holes and the leader folded. Edit: 7 back through 11 and went birdie, par, par, eagle, birdie, par, birdie to win. This was his 6th consecutive event win also.
If you’ve seen all the “moneyball” metrics around golf, it was like that personified. You didn’t have the math behind it, but could just tell every single shot he was gaining fractions of strokes on his competitors, and over the course of the round, you just knew he was going to smoke the field. Everyone knew it, everyone could watch it, and the rest of the field was playing for second.
I was in 8th grade in 99. My dad and uncle took me to Medinah on that Sunday of PGA. We followed him around all day and I just remember everything about him was total perfection. Routine, Swing, Pants, Shirt, Hat, Walk…everything. He looked fake. Just like MJ
My adjective is "transcendent." People who didn't give a shit about golf or sports in general started watching just to watch Tiger. He grew the game and he will be sorely missed when he's finally done. He single-handedly changed the perception that golf was an old rich white country club sport, and you can't discount his influence on future generations. I grew up in the 90s and knew plenty of kids who started golfing just because of Tiger. Same with parents who made their kids start golfing. Another way to put it is like this: he won all the time and was still everyone's favorite. The comparisons to Michael Jordan's Bulls or The Avengers or whatever are appropriate.
Like watching Michael Jordan in the playoffs...
More like a team of Jordans. The Bulls had moments where they struggled in the ‘90s when that was not the vibe with Tiger’s dominant era.
Watching tiger in his prime was like watching a movie and all these unbelievable things happen and you're like "there's no way that this could happen in real life", except they were, and it happened what seemed like every tournament lol. Some of the best memories of my childhood was watching Tiger on Sundays with my dad. As far as I remember, there were a few conversations on whether Jack was better than Tiger, but Tiger was just on another level than Jack and I think most people knew that.
Imagine watching golf and it’s a legitimate bet to take Tiger vs. the field. No one could dominate a Sunday like him. You watched Sundays when Tiger was in the lead to watch him crush the field. There is no one that played quite like him on the mentality front.
4 rounds at The Masters without a 3 putt. Give me a break!
I worked at a hotel during a portion of Tigers prime. People would come in and put our TV on just to catch some of Tiger as they were waiting for something or passing by. I’ve never seen that happen for anything else.
The amazing, super artistic shots were memorable for sure; but often times, especially post-2005, he’d lap fields simply by just not making mistakes. If he hit a shot offline, he’d get it exactly where he knew he could make par or even birdie from. He was just insane at 5-10ft par saves, and seemed to always leave himself straight putts up the hill. The guys golf IQ was just so off the charts before you even consider the physical talent. Watch the highlights of the 2006 Open Championship at Hoylake to get an idea of the “master tactician” style that he adopted in the 2nd half of his more dominant years.
The most interesting thing to me about Tiger was what his father said about him. Tiger athletically was a fantastic golfer. There were other fantastic golfers he had to compete with. David Duval, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, etc. His father prior to him going pro said, "They won't know what him them. It's Tiger's mental makeup that will crush them." He was right. Tiger was more mentally tough and psychologically resilient than any pro of his time. Lots of guys can hit the shots. None of them had what was between Tiger's ears.
It was honestly bizarre to watch. He was SO good, and SO much better than everyone else, that the oddsmakers would usually have him favoured vs the entire field of other competitors, and he often would prove those odds right. The stats are just legendary, I can't remember exactly, but in majors over something like a 10 year span, he was over 200 strokes (!!!!) better, total aggregate across all rounds in majors for 10 years, better than the next closest (Mickleson). It defied explanation. You would be watching, and be surprised when his shot didn't go in, or it didn't do what he expected. He was like the Babe in baseball, ability to call his shots. He was so supremely confident in himself, and so supremely talented, that he would take on the hardest pins on the toughest holes, and regularly make birdie. 6' to the right of the pin is death? Meh, fire straight at it and stick it to 3'. His cojones were gigantic. At first we didn't know just how good he'd be, but I remember watching him win his first Masters, and my dad saying "that's the greatest golfer you'll ever see, and you get to watch him as you grow up". Pretty cool.
 Don’t 🥲
There were two types of tournaments: those in which Tiger Woods was playing, and the ones that nobody watched.
What always struck me were the final round galleries. There was such energy around him. His playing partners often wilted under that scrutiny.
Go watch the chasing 82 series on YouTube and see for yourself. He dominated every time he teed it up
He was the closest thing you could get to Thanos. Full stop
Tiger Woods established dominance in the sport like nobody else had done before and like nobody else will likely ever do again: * In 2023, Scotty Scheffler's scoring average of 68.629 was the seventh lowest season average on record since they began tracking the stats in 1988. The other six seasons ahead of his are all owned by Tiger Woods. *Two of those are under 68*. * He is third all-time in European Tour wins with 41 wins. *He has never been a European Tour member*. * He was eighth on the all-time PGA Tour win list with 46 wins and *he was still in his twenties*. * He won the US Open *by fifteen shots*. He was at -12 and the runner up was Ernie Els at +3. * He won the Masters by ten shots. *Winning by ten shots or more has only been accomplished twice since 1900, both by Tiger.* * At one point Tiger held all four major trophies simultaneously, known as the Tiger Slam. on average, he beat the field in those events by 5 shots and *he was 86 shots better than the next nearest player.* * He won 82 of 371 events. For his entire career, *he won almost a quarter of all the events he entered.* * From 2005 to 2009, Tiger won 41% of the tournaments he played, *including six majors*. * In the first 33 World Golf Championship events, against the strongest fields in golf, *Tiger won half of the events.* * From 1997 to 213, Tiger was 126 strokes under par in Major championships. Among people with 90 or more round in majors, Steve Flesh is second in that regard, at 125 over par, three fewer strokes than Phil Mickelson at 18 over par. *That means Tiger was 256 strokes lower in majors than the next nearest competitor.* * Tiger is the only player in the past 72 years to have a win streak of more than four consecutive PGA Tour events. *He has done it 3 times, with streaks of 7, 6, and 5 wins.* * The World Golf Championship events and the Majors have the strongest fields in golf. *23 of Tiger's 82 wins have been against WGC or Masters fields.* * Tiger has spent 683 weeks with the number one ranking. *You could add the next four nearest players together and he'd still be leading by 4 weeks.* * Tiger went from turning professional to the world number 1 ranking in the world *in less than ten months*. * Tiger's first missed cut came in Canada after only 26 professional events. It pissed him off, and *he didn't miss another cut for over eight years (142 events).* * Tiger's 82 wins are tied with Sam Snead for most PGA Tour wins, but, without taking too much away from Snead's accomplishments, Tiger's 82 is the higher count. Why? Some of Snead's win total includes one 18-hole tournament, five team events, and five events with fields of 16 or fewer players. On a like-for-like basis, *Tiger's win total would be closer to 100 wins.* * In the history of golf, there have only been eight major wins with scores of 18-under or better. *Five of those wins belong to Tiger*. * With lead or tie for the lead or better, *Tiger has won 93% of the time.* * When in a playoff for a victory, *Tiger has won 94% of the time.* There will always be the GOAT debate, because Nicklaus won more majors, and Snead has (officially at least), won the same number of PGA Tour events. For anyone that understands the difference in golf between Tiger's era and Jack/Snead's era, just in terms of depth of field and international participation in the sport) there is no debate. Tiger is the GOAT. Jack won majors when there were eight guys who could win majors. Tiger won majors when there were 40 guys who could win majors.
We knew we were watching the Michael Jordan of golf and it was pretty incredible. Every event was Tiger vs the field. Basically a 50/50 shot.
Any tournament he was in was must watch TV on Sunday. No matter how many shots back, you always thought he had a chance to win.
Tiger made impossible shots seem mundane, difficult shots seem easy, and regular shots seem super easy. It wasn't that we watched for the everyday good Tiger, it was so we could see what he would pull off next.
Everyone knew he was special and we were watching greatness. Like watching Usain Bolt or michael Phelps at the Olympics, they were all just in their own league.
Betting in the era often had even odds on "Tiger" or "The field" (the other 127 players in the tournament).
Dude won 25% of the tournaments he entered. And his competitors were all terrified of him. Pure magic.
The ESPN show *Pardon The Interruption* would end every Wednesday show with the question “Who ya got? Tiger or The Field?” Every. Single. Week.
I liken it to what it was like watching Pedro Martinez pitch in his prime: When he was out there, at the very worst, you were going to see something really great. At the very best, something just wildly special. Either way it was an event.
No description can do the feeling justice. So intense and euphoric; like a drug.
A great time to watch golf. Unlikely to ever see anything like that again. He transcended the game.
Im 38. I watched him make sooo many 3-10 footers. He killed everyone, most of the time, except for the Ryder/President’s cups. I was always waiting for him to showcase his dominance in the team format. There’s a reason he still uses that Scotty Cameron GSS Pro Platinum, he’s made a ton of putts with it. A lot of people cheered his long drives, etc. He did make Par 5’s look like long Par 4s. But Tiger had the COMPLETE game. Long irons, Middle irons, Wedge play, Bunker play, Scrambling ability, Clutch factor (he could handle the pressure), Putting again. He was just must see tv everywhere he went. I mean he won a British Open that had like 1000 bunkers and did not hit into one for 4 rounds (i think). How could I forget the low 2iron Stinger shots that flew like 270 in the air like a missle. Or how he used a steel shafted driver until like 2009. He could work the ball both ways left/right/up/down. Tiger was so dominant, he makes Phil Mickelson seem like a lesser golfer instead of one of the greatest of all time. I read an article that mentions how far Tiger would hit these new age drivers. Full stop, Tiger would be living at 200mph+ speed all day.
The "Tiger Effect" was real and was the focus of several case studies on the business of golf. It was like watching Michael Jordan during playoff season. The crowds surrounding him was insane.
Everybody hits far now, but *Augusta National* changed its course because of Tiger. Like MJ, the dude was just special, and you just expected him to win.
Kind of like watching Tom Brady and the Patriots. You almost knew they’d inevitably be in the playoffs and a chance to win it all. Same with Tiger, you were asking yourself “Tiger or the field?” I’m not “old” by any means I only got to really watch the tail end of his prime, I would watch it with my Grandpa, and he always said Tiger was the best golfer he’d ever seen and it wasn’t really close.
It was awe inspiring. You already knew he would win and you would feel bad for the people he was paired with on Sundays “Sunday Tiger” was an experience. It was the exact same feeling as watching Prime Jordan in the playoffs.
Some facts to put Tiger’s dominance into perspective. At 34, Rory Mcilroy celebrated his 20th PGA tour win. When Tiger was 30, he’d had 70 PGA tour wins. Rickie Fowler had 3 PGA Tour wins at age 27. Tiger had 34 at the same age. It took Jordan Spieth 112 events to get his 10th win. Tiger took 63. Dustin Johnson won his only major at age 31. At the same age, Tiger had won 12. Ridiculous. There’ll never be anyone as good as him ever again.
Sunday red was appointment television. And bc he was always at the top of the leaderboard you could schedule your sunday plans/errands like you would a scheduled nfl game. Knowing that at worst you would miss the first few holes if running late but if you sat down around 2pm you were gonna be able to watch Tiger at his peak for 4 hours.
I’m 42. When Tiger won The Masters a few years ago I shed some tears.
Similar to Scottie Scheffler right now in that Tiger was always the favorite in every tournament and it was always a serious possibility that he would win it no matter what other factor was involved. Different than Scottie in that he was super intimidating to the field. There was an air of fear/respect in the interviews of all the other players. Honestly the closest comparison I can think of is Mike Tyson in his prime. You just always knew he was going to knock the guy out as soon as he landed a punch. There was an inevitability to it.
Scottie is the closest current comparison, but still so far away. It’s like comparing Scottie to someone perpetually around the cut line.