Entering the 2000 season, Tiger Woods, at age 24, had already made plenty of noise on the PGA Tour: 15 wins, two majors, the shattering intimidation. But what he did 25 years ago, in his astonishing turn-of-the-century campaign, redefined the game. Maybe forever.
TIGER 2000 SOUNDS LIKE an Italian sports car but is actually a useful shorthand to describe the greatest season in the history of modern tournament golf. Nine wins, three of them majors, in 20 starts, and $9 million in PGA Tour prize money, back when $9 million in PGA Tour prize money was a lot of money. Tiger’s nemesis, Phil Mickelson, who had four wins, was second on the money list — and earned half of what Woods earned. Half the earnings and maybe one-tenth the attention. Phil was a golf star. Tiger was a star, period.
You can make the case that what Tiger Woods did 25 years ago is the most dominant yearlong performance by any athlete, anywhere, in any sport, at any time. We respect that the editors of Horse Illustrated may feel differently. Secretariat’s win at the Belmont Stakes in 1973 by 31 lengths to complete the Triple Crown — that’s serious stuff. But what about Tiger’s win at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in 2000, when he won by 15 shots, the first of three Grand Slam events he won that year? That’s right there with it, and then you add to that this topper: Woods expanded our notion of what a human being could do. So Tiger 2000 has that going for it, which is nice.
It was a game changer, really. In 1997, his first full year as a touring pro, Woods was often described as the first Black golfer to do this, the first Black golfer to do that. Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike, called Tiger’s win at Augusta that year golf’s “Jackie Robinson moment.” But by 2000, the first year of a new and promising century, you stopped hearing that. Tiger, at age 24, was too big and too good to have qualifiers attached to his name. In 2000, Phil Knight extended Tiger’s Nike contract by five years, for $105 million.
Tiger is 49 now. This was all half a lifetime ago. If you were 75 then, you’re now — yikes. How is that possible, how did a quarter century come and go so quickly? The blink of an eye, a Nick Price backswing. Or, for you youngsters out there, a Jon Rahm backswing. Tiger’s own backswing, under the watchful eye of Butch Harmon, was poetry in motion in 2000. It was all mesmerizing, the swing and everything. Other players would slow down, as they walked across various practice tees, to sneak a peek at Tiger’s swing, and at Tiger. Few tried to chat him up. Tiger was not chummy, chatty or easy. Too bad Bantam Ben didn’t live to see Tiger 2000. Hogan would have understood the swing — and the man making it. In 2000, Woods played 20 events and was in the top 10 17 times. Talk about owning it.
He won Arnold Palmer’s tournament at Bay Hill for the first time, by four shots over Davis Love. Ten weeks later, he won Jack Nicklaus’ tournament, the Memorial, for the second time, by five over Ernie Els. Some group, the hosts and the runners-up.
Arnold and Jack already knew Tiger, of course. All through the ’90s, going back to Tiger’s amateur days and his early years as a pro, the two legends played with Tiger, practiced with him, talked about him to writers. In ’98, they started having Tuesday-night supper with Woods in the Augusta National clubhouse, with Tiger picking up the Champions Dinner tab that first year. But in 2000, it all got ratcheted up a notch.
Before the U.S. Open at Pebble, being played for the 100th time, Arnold made a bet with a friend. In Tiger versus the field, Arnold was taking Tiger. The Open at Pebble was Jack Nicklaus’ final U.S. Open, at his favorite course in the world, at the tournament he considered to be golf’s greatest test. How fitting for Woods to do what he did there — a changing of the guard. In 2000, Nicklaus and Palmer, in word and deed, gave Woods the keys to the kingdom. In the years to come, when Woods made his schedule, the four majors were the starting point, followed by Bay Hill and Memorial. He’s won Arnold’s tournament eight times and Jack’s five.
At the end of 2000, Tiger started hosting his own tournament, what is now the Hero World Challenge. World leaders and CEOs were initiating conversations with him. He had an open invitation to hang with Michael Jordan. He was Hogan for swing studies, Arnold for impact and Jack for promising greatness.
In August of 2000, the PGA Championship was played at Valhalla, a Nicklaus course in Louisville, Ky. Big Jack, in his final PGA, played the first two rounds with Woods. By then, Nicklaus knew: Every aspect of Tiger’s game was equal to or superior to his own, when Nicklaus was in his prime.
Mike “Fluff” Cowan, Tiger’s first caddie on Tour, explained Tiger as a matter of alchemy: Woods was a little better than his competition in every aspect of the game. But when you added up all those littles, a multiplier effect kicked in. If Tiger was playing regular Tiger golf, you probably weren’t going to beat him, not over four days.
Woods won the season opener in Hawaii in January. He won the AT&T Pro-Am at Pebble in February. He won Arnold’s tournament in March. The next week, Hal Sutton beat Woods by one shot at the Players, and Tiger seemed to actually get a kick out of it — a 41-year-old player with drumstick forearms and a hard-ass manner did not, as Sutton said, “roll over and play dead,” just because he was playing Tiger Woods.
In 2000, Woods was obliterating courses, and renting rooms in the heads of the other guys. His so-called peer group, your Phils, your Ernies, your John Dalys, knew he was at another level. All that was left were the innocents, the players who didn’t know better.
Sutton needed every bit of his “be the right club today” urgency to close the deal on the final hole. Good for him! As for Woods, he was hitting the right club pretty much every day. Right club, right shot, right shape, right flight. The year as a clinic.
Okay, Woods had off weeks. For instance, his terrible Masters in April. (Fifth!) But he’d make adjustments, like a colllege basketball coach at the half, and he didn’t stay down for long. He won the Memorial in May. In June and July he won the two Opens, Pebble first, followed by St. Andrews. Nicklaus had won Opens on those two courses, too, the second at, as Woods often said, “the home of golf,” and a muni to boot. Woods was always aware of what Nicklaus had done, when he did it and where he did it. The awareness is part of the majesty of Tiger 2000.
With the win at the Old Course, Woods now had four major titles with no duplicates. He became, after Gene Sarazen, Hogan, Gary Player and Nicklaus, the fifth player to win the career Grand Slam, replacing Nicklaus as the youngest to do it. Tiger raised the tiny old jug wearing a red Nike sweater, a TAG Heuer watch — and his toothy trademark smile. It was hard to know what he was thinking. With reporters, he warmed to technical questions and that’s about it. He finished 19 under par in still conditions, eight shots ahead of Ernie Els.
A month earlier, Woods had won at Pebble at 12 under, 15 shots ahead of Ernie and Miguel Ángel Jiménez. Nobody but Tiger came close to breaking par. That’s how punishing the Pebble Beach rough was that year, and how hard it was to putt its bumpy afternoon greens. When the tournament was over, Els said to Butch Harmon, “Where do we go for the playoff?” The playoff for second place. He was joking, of course. Later, Els told an acquaintance, “I can’t beat him.” It was not a joke.
Woods was obliterating courses, and renting rooms in the heads of the other guys. He was playing match-play golf and stroke-play golf at the same time. His so-called peer group, your Phils, your Ernies, your John Dalys, knew he was at another level. All that was left were the innocents, the players who didn’t know better.
Enter Bob May. At Valhalla, at 31, he was playing in his first PGA Championship. Woods and May were in the final two-some on Sunday, and Woods started Sunday with a one-shot lead. At the end of the round, they were tied. May was hanging! The CBS ratings were through the roof. In the three-hole playoff, May took 13 shots — and Tiger 12. When the stakes were high and the air was thin, Woods always found a way.
If you were within a hundred yards of Woods, you could feel his intensity. That’s why he and Steve Williams, by then his caddie, were so compatible. Williams was all in on every shot — they were matched for intensity. Tiger’s agent, Mark Steinberg, the same. He was a study in frenetic energy. You were either on Team Tiger or off it, and very few were on it. Tiger lived in a bubble, staying in rental houses, seldom eat-ing out, flying on private planes, seeking refuge at sea, under water, scuba diving and spearfishing.
In 2000, Woods was intense without being tense. His manner, despite what the highlight reel depicts, was often calm. When he’d hit a bad shot, he’d respond with a quick, profane outburst. Then he’d hand the club over to Williams and walk placidly to his ball, ignoring the noise, the shouting of his name, the cameras in his face. His elders — his mother and father, his former psychologist (Jay Brunza) and his current swing coach (Harmon) — had raised him and trained him for this.
Tiger 2000 had an unlikely preamble. Despite winning the ’97 Masters by 12 strokes, Woods wasn’t satisfied. There were shots that week, and that year, that told him he needed to get a lot better. Among other things, Woods didn’t like his distance control from 150 yards and in. Harmon told him he needed hands that were less active through the ball, and a stronger core to make his body more stable through the ball too. They went to work.
In 1998 and 1999, over the course of 18 months, Woods and Harmon dismantled and rebuilt Tiger’s swing. Woods changed his diet and his physique. He changed golf balls. (The Titleist Professional was out and the Nike Tour Accuracy was in.) He changed caddies. (Fluff was out and Stevie was in.) He changed agents. (Hughes Norton was out and Steinberg was in.) Earl was Earl, Tiger’s beloved Pops and his go-to putting advisor. But Earl was no longer in on Tiger’s everyday life as he had been for 20-plus years. By 2000, Tiger Woods was in better shape in every way.
There were aspects of his excellence that defied measurement. How he practiced his craft, how he managed his play, how he analyzed his goals. And then, beyond all that, how he found a way to rise to the occasion. That ability was spectral, really, maybe the ultimate gift from his take-no-prisoners mother and his come-on-in father.
In 2000, Tiger took an Earl dictum — Let the legend grow — to new places. Father had given son a superpower, a mind Tiger could fill with possibilities. Nicklaus has said the idea of winning by more than a shot or two never really occurred to him. And here was Tiger 2000, winning by four, by five, by 15, by eight. Golf had no language for it.
There were aspects of Tiger’s excellence that defied measurement. How he practiced his craft, how he managed his play, how he analyzed his goals. And then, beyond all that, how he found a way to rise to the occasion. That ability was spectral.
Here’s a stab at it. Maybe you know about the lopsided Super Bowl from years ago, when the San Francisco 49ers beat the Denver Broncos 55–10. Okay, winning a British Open by eight is winning a Super Bowl by 55–10, if not more. But what does that make winning a U.S. Open by 15, 99–6?
Here’s how Johnny Miller, the NBC golf analyst, summarized what he saw that afternoon, at the end of the Father’s Day telecast: “You’ve got to say this is the greatest performance in golf history. It might be the greatest in sports, period. It’s one of those performances you’ve got to tell your kids about. You’ve got to learn from it. You’ve got to suck it in. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
SO: WHAT DID WE LEARN FROM IT?
Well, for one thing, 25 years later, you can say this for sure: It all does go too fast. Tiger had a certain restlessness, but we did too, so consumed with what’s next, what’s next, what’s next. The truth was we were watching the best, most dominant golf ever played. What is wrong with us, that we cannot get completely lost in the moment? Because one thing world-class golf will show any of us is this: To do it, you have to get over your ball and be completely lost in the moment. Tiger, in those days, used to close his eyes for a long second or two.
Wonder what happened to that?
What else, in the way of what-did-we-learn broad strokes? How about this: Get outside! When Woods won the U.S. Open by 15, he didn’t miss a single putt within 10 feet over the four rounds. Do you think he got his putting that good on an indoor simulator? He putted on mowed greens and in fresh air. That week at Pebble, he was putting in the dark on the big green in front of the Lodge.
At the end of the year, on December 30, Tiger turned 25. A nice, round number. He had won the last three majors in 2000, and after Valhalla there was a long wait for April, for the Masters and his attempt to conclude the Tiger Slam. You know the phrase because you know what he did.
At the end of 2000, I interviewed 19 people, witnesses to Tiger 2000, for a Sports Illustrated story. Tiger was, for the second time, the magazine’s Sportsman of the Year. I got Earl, Arnold, Jack, Tiger’s walking USGA official at Pebble, his walking police officer at St. Andrews, Butch Harmon, a dozen others. They were all good. One of the interviews never made it out of the notebook: the one with Tiger. All he wanted to talk about was the weather at St. Andrews, how still and calm it was for four days. At the time, it seemed to miss the point. It had no grandeur.
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