Woods obliterated the

It is 20 years since a young Tiger became an icon with a mesmerising 12-shot Masters victory

Augusta specialises in sepia. From the giant “Arnie’s Army” badge that chairman Billy Payne sported yesterday, as homage to Arnold Palmer, to a press building that resembles an opulent Southern mansion plucked from the pages of Tennessee Williams, every gesture cleaves stubbornly to a history that extends back only to 1930.

This is one occasion, though, when the torrent of nostalgia feels justified. For it is 20 years since Tiger Woods, swaddled in a red sweater under a cold and cloudy Georgia sky, wrote the greatest golfing story ever told. Others might point to Jack Nicklaus’s back nine of 30, to win a sixth Green Jacket at the age of 46 but, for sheer paradigm shift, nothing comes close to Woods’s pyrotechnics here in 1997, when he obliterated the finest field in the game by 12 strokes.

Twelve – it was unparalleled. Even Nicklaus, in all of his 18 major triumphs, had never eclipsed the opposition by more than nine. But Woods, already celebrated as a prodigy for his three straight US Amateur titles, elevated himself to phenomenon with the most vivid exclamation mark. Colin Montgomerie, who accompanied Woods for the third round and shot 74 to his partner’s 65, reflects: “It was the easiest 65 I had ever witnessed. It opened my eyes and the world’s eyes to a golfer we hadn’t seen the likes of before.”

But there was far more to this seismic statement than mere numbers. Woods, still just 21, was also the first African-American champion at a place that defined white patriarchy and privilege. It was a different time, ’97, a climate in which men such as Fuzzy Zoeller – who referred to Woods as a “little boy” and warned him not to serve “fried chicken or collard greens, or whatever the hell they serve” at the following year’s champions’ dinner – felt emboldened to let slip casual racism.

The juxtaposition of Woods holding the trophy with the older Augusta denizens clapping dutifully behind him blazed with resonance. It was only in 1975, after all, that they had first allowed a black man, Lee Elder, to play the course.

Woods, understandably, has often been uncomfortable being pigeonholed by race. In any case, he defines himself as “Cablinasian”, a portmanteau reflecting his ethnic make-up as a quarter Chinese, a quarter Thai, a quarter black, an eighth native American and an eighth Dutch. As Gary Kamiya, the San Francisco author, has put it: “Woods has become a messenger for a larger truth: Our race does not make us who we are.”

Besides, Woods arrived in Augusta that week fixated exclusively with displaying on the major stage the full range of gifts that he knew he possessed.

Butch Harmon, who had become Woods’s coach in 1993 after some persuasion by his father, Earl, says: “He was ready, going in there. He had played so well in ’96, and by the start of ’97 his game had matured. In that part of his career, you expected him to win every time he played.”

Such an attitude could surprise his peers. Mark O’Meara, a quasi-fraternal figure to Woods in those early years, has remembered being taken aback when the young man asked him if there was a chance to win the calendar grand slam. O’Meara cautioned him that it was unrealistic, but Woods reacted impassively. “I think it’s possible,” he said.

The opening act, though, could scarcely have been less auspicious. Woods looked on the Thursday morning as if he was shrivelling amid the anticipation, toiling to a front nine of 40. Nick Faldo, playing alongside him as the defending champion, could have been forgiven for wondering what all the fuss was about. One moment would turn the narrative around.