HOW R&A FAILED IN PLAN TO TAME TIGER
An Old Course with extra teeth was no match for a hungry Woods in 2000
blow, he battered the course — and the rest of the field — into submission.
Ernie Els couldn’t quite believe it. Nor could Thomas Bjorn, the man with whom he shared a distant second place.
Two world-class players in their own right, they had been made to feel like mere mortals who could no longer compete when Woods was on this sort of form.
‘It certainly looks like somebody out there is playing golf on a different planet than the rest of us,’ said Bjorn. ‘When he brings his A-game, he’s just different class.’
The view from Els was similarly emphatic, with the South African saying: ‘Whatever I say is going to be an understatement. It seems like we’re not playing in the same ballpark right now.
‘If I could play like that, like he just did the last four days in a major championship, that would be my ultimate golfing week.’
Els had perhaps the best seat in the house to watch it all unfold, finishing joint runner-up in both the US Open and Open Championship in 2000. A four-time major champion, two of which came in The Open, Els is a bona fide Hall of Famer. Yet, still, he recognised that no one could get close to Woods.
Woods had blown the field away at the US Open at Pebble Beach to finish on 12 under par and win by 15 shots.
In the end, his margin of victory at St Andrews was relatively modest in comparison. He won by just the eight shots after carding four rounds in the 60s to finish on 19 under par.
When Peter Dawson announced him to be the new Champion Golfer of the Year, there could surely have been no more fitting description for the young American.
His exploits over an 18-month period that stretched over 2000 and 2001 remain the stuff of legend, the likes of which we are unlikely to witness again.
Greatness is a word often overused in sport, but how else are we to describe the level of golf produced by Woods around this period?
By lifting the Claret Jug at St Andrews, he completed the career Grand Slam whilst still in the relative infancy of his career.
He became just the fifth man to achieve that feat, following in the footsteps of Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus.
But Woods went one better when, in the spring of 2001, he won the Masters to complete what became known as the ‘Tiger Slam’; holding all four majors at the same time.
The numbers were frankly astonishing. In the 16 rounds of the ‘Tiger Slam’, Woods’ cumulative total was 65 under par.
For context, his nearest rivals were Els and Phil Mickelson all the way back on 20 under. He was effectively playing a different sport to all those around him. It was golf from the gods.
The 15-shot margin of victory at Pebble Beach still stands as a record in the majors, but Woods actually felt his performance at St Andrews was even better.
‘Yeah, the US Open was pretty good,’ he said some years later. ‘But I actually played better at the British Open that year. The smaller targets, the tighter shots. Still, the US Open was pretty good.’
The winner of five Claret Jugs himself, Tom Watson certainly knows a thing or two about how to get the job done in The Open.
Watson was a master of links golf and excelled in the testing conditions, but he knew that Woods was taking the game to a whole new level.
‘Tiger has raised the bar to a level only he can reach,’ said Watson when asked for his views on Woods’ performance at St Andrews.
The bar eventually stood at nine victories in the calendar year of 2000, three of which were major championships.
Tiger was simply in a league of his own, with Els joking: ‘Old Tom Morris? If you put Old Tom Morris with Tiger, Tiger would probably beat him by 80 shots right now.’
The feats remain unlikely to ever be matched. The year 2000 will forever be remembered in golf as the gold standard for excellence. It was Tiger’s golfing utopia.