In his prime, Tiger Woods seemed invincible on the golf course. But that doesn’t mean he was unbeatable in all sports during his peak years. He learned that lesson the hard way when he faced off against MLB Hall of Famer John Smoltz in live batting practice.
How do we know this? That’s thanks to the PGA Tour Champions, who recently released a video of Smoltz dishing on the fun story next to fellow Atlanta Braves legends Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux.
How it happened
The story begins back in the early 2000s, when Smoltz was on the back-half of his historic career with the Braves, and Woods was in the midst of the most dominant stretch of golf ever.
Smoltz revealed that Tiger had already made it known that he wanted to take at-bats against him, so when Smoltz was throwing a simulated game at an empty Braves stadium, he called Tiger up.
“He had always wanted to face me, and didn’t know how we would be able to pull that off. But I just happened to have a rehab sim game, and there was no one in the stadium. And I said, ‘Hey Tiger, you’re in luck, if you want to face me no one is going to be there, the team is on the road, I’ll be pitching a couple of innings, you can come and take an at-bat or two.'” Smoltz shared. “And he goes, ‘That’d be great.'”
Tiger’s only rule for Smoltz
So Tiger made his way to Atlanta, and the two sports legends got ready for their face-off. But before they began, Tiger explicitly set one important rule for Smoltz: give me everything you’ve got.
“We set it up, you know, and he goes, ‘No. 1 rule … give me everything you have. Don’t hold back.'” Smoltz said.
But Smoltz was worried about injuring one of the greatest golfers who ever lived.
“I said, ‘Tiger, this is the deal, I’m not worried about hitting you, I’m just worried about your thumb getting jammed when you hit. That could keep you out of golf for a while.'”
That didn’t seem to concern Tiger, who at that point had already completed the “Tiger Slam” and was well on his way to 15 major wins.
Why Tiger got angry
“Well, he’s a great athlete, and he took his batting practice, and he got in there, and it would be like me trying to think that I could make the cut at the Masters this past year. No chance,” Smoltz explained.
But toward the end of the at-bats, Smoltz broke Tiger’s one explicit rule, and Tiger was not happy about it.
“At the end of the at-bats, I gave him fastballs that he could hit. And when he found that out, he got really mad,” Smoltz revealed. “But he declared himself 1-4 with a walk. So I let him roll with it.
“That would have been probably after 2000 when I was making a transition back to maybe starting. He got in full uniform, we got the picture. It was a blast, you know.”
Tiger Woods and the SEALs
Hyper-competitiveness has been a trademark of Woods’ career, and it inspired him to take on Smoltz in the first place. But it’s not the only time Woods has tried to prove himself outside of golf.
He also famously trained with the Navy SEALs. Woods’ father Earl was a Green Beret, and Tiger has said that he had dreamed of a life in the military if his golf career didn’t work out.
In The Big Miss, a 2012 book by Woods’ former coach Hank Haney, Haney claimed that while training with the SEALs in 2007, Woods injured his left knee. Just one year later, Woods would undergo knee surgery following his win at the 2008 U.S. Open, the beginning of a series of injuries and surgeries that would hamper him for the rest of his career.
In his PGA Tour Champions interview, Smoltz attempted to explain his theory on why Tiger wanted to face him on the diamond, an explanation that could easily apply to Tiger’s reported experience with the SEALs as well.
“This happens everywhere in life. You don’t know how many of my friends … ‘Oh I could hit you back in the day.’ And I’m like, ‘You got 0% chance. There is no way,'” Smoltz said. “But everyone wants to measure themselves against somebody who’s doing that for a living. The same would be that I have no chance in a major golf tournament or any golf tournament.”
Smoltz knows this lesson better than most. In 2023, he attempted to earn his way onto the PGA Tour Champions through Q-school. Despite holding a +1.5 handicap, Smoltz shot 80 in the first round of the Final Stage and did not advance. But he has teed it up in nine events on the senior circuit, thanks to sponsor’s exemptions.
