On December 30, Tiger Woods reaches the half-century mark, getting one-step closer to being able to shoot his age. He has packed a lot into his 50 years from remarkable golf shots to 15 major championship titles, from humiliating personal troubles played out to the world to dedicated fatherhood, from surgeries to his back, knees, ankles, feet and various other parts of his body to raising millions for charities, something for which he gets little credit.
I have been lucky enough to follow along as his career rose and dipped and rose again, giving me a front-row seat to many of the great moments in golf. So, too, have many of Canada’s top players, who were in awe of Woods’ shot-making skills and ability to play round after round in front of massive galleries.
As Woods celebrates his birthday, here is a collection of reflections of the greatest golfer his era.
2000 RBC Canadian Open
Woods arrived at the Canadian Open with six wins under his belt. That included the U.S. Open, a tournament he won by a jaw-dropping 15 shots, the PGA Championship, where he held off unheralded Bob May in a playoff, and the Open Championship, raising the Claret Jug after an eight-shot win over the Old Course at St. Andrews.
Needless to say, there was a massive media presence at Glen Abbey Golf Club, at that time still the home of the national championship. There were three tiers of media at the course: the golf media, those such as myself who covered golf for a living; the part-time sports media, the pseudo-reporters who showed up at golf events twice a year: once was at the national championship and the other was at the media day, where they could play free golf; the third was the news media. This group was compiled of people who came because they knew this Tiger guy was a big deal, but not much more. While standing by the practice putting green surrounded by a horde of fans gazing at Woods, one member of this last group asked me which one was Woods. I choked and then pointed at Canadian Dave Barr, who was rolling in putts nearby.
One of the best moments of that day came on that putting green. As Woods rolled putt after putt, he stood up and saw the great Moe Norman standing by the side of the green. Woods walked over to him, extended his hand and the two shook and had a brief conversation before Woods returned to his work. In that moment, two of the greatest ball-strikers met.
Woods went on to win that Canadian Open, becoming the only person other than Lee Trevino to win the U.S., Open and Canadian Open crowns in the same year. Much attention is given to the remarkable approach shot he hit on the 72nd hole from a fairway bunker. It flew over the water in front of the green and stopped just a few feet from the cup, securing the victory. For many years, Woods called it the best shot of his career, although he’s gone on to hit many others that have been even more impressive.
What many don’t remember about that win, however, is what took place on Friday afternoon. Woods was outside the cutline standing on the par-3 15th tee and in danger of packing his bag to go home early. That’s when he put together a remarkable streak. He birdied the par-3 15th, then hit his approach on the par-5 16th to four feet, making eagle. His drive on 17 found a fairway bunker, but that didn’t cause any problems as Woods dropped his shot three feet from the cup, tapping in for birdie. He then hammered a drive on the par-5 18th that left him just a sand wedge to the green, and six-feet for another eagle. In it went and Woods finished up birdie-eagle-birdie-eagle – six under in four holes. He moved from missing the cut to second place after 54 holes.
I walked those four holes with Woods and could not have been more impressed by what he achieved. He had played rather pedestrian golf for the first part of his day, but somehow he found the extra gear on the 15th tee. You could see the drive in his face, the intensity kicking in. The world would witness that look time and time again over his career, as if nothing was going to stop him.
Later, in comments to the media, he almost laughed about the round, saying he found a groove in his swing that had been missing. It stayed around over the next 36 holes, especially that one swing on the 72nd hole that led him to victory.
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Graham DeLaet, 2015 Players Championship
When he finished up his second round at the TPC Sawgrass, Graham DeLaet signed his scorecard and took a look at the leaderboard. His rounds of 75 and 69 left him at even par and firmly in the middle of the pack. But below his name he saw one that jumped off the screen: Tiger Woods.
“I knew there was a 50-per-cent chance that I’d get paired with him the next day and I hadn’t played with him before, so I was kind of excited,” DeLaet remembered.
Sure enough, when the pairings were finalized, it was DeLaet and Woods together, setting up an exciting round. DeLaet had a friend from home staying with him in his rental house in Ponte Vedra, Fla., and the pal always liked to put a wager on big events. This was a big event. Somewhere, he found a bookmaker giving odds of 40 to 1 that DeLaet could beat Woods by five shots. He put down $100 on his Saskatchewan buddy.
The bet may have seemed absurd considering the records of the two players, but Woods had been battling back injuries earlier that season and wasn’t performing all that well.
“I beat him by two on the front and I was up two more when we got to 18,” said DeLaet. “There was a real chance that I could win that bet for my buddy.”
That increased when Woods hit his tee shot right, into the trees. To reach the green, he would need to cut his ball around some branches and over the massive pond. Adding to the difficulty was the dormant Bermuda grass on which the ball was sitting that made it tough to put any spin the ball at all. It was a risky play.
“I couldn’t believe the shot he hit,” recalled DeLaet. “It just flew out from the trees and started curving over the water and landed on the green. He two-putted for par as if it was nothing. My buddy was probably already counting the $4,000 he was going to win.”
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Mackenzie Hughes, 2018 Players Championship
After rounds of 76-67, Mackenze Hughes had a Friday afternoon of scoreboard watching. He was right on the cutline, not knowing if he’d play the weekend. He sat in his hotel room monitoring the leaderboard and was keeping his eye on two things.
One was whether he would make the cut and the second was whether he would play with the golfer sitting directly below him on the leaderboard: Tiger Woods.
“I was trying to do the math in my head frantically to figure out, ‘am I gonna play with Tiger? Am I gonna play with Tiger? And I hadn’t quite figured it out yet before the text came. There it is on my phone: ‘9 am, Tiger Woods.’ My heart was beating so fast on my chest because there it was — I get to play with someone I’ve watched my whole life. “
When Hughes arrived at the tee the next day, it wasn’t the usual early morning start with only a handful of spectators. There were already thousands of people lining the hole, ready to get a glimpse of Woods.
“At the Players, they do a first tee announcement to introduce you. The guy says, ‘Mackenzie Hughes on the tee, from Ontario, Canada, with one PGA Tour win.’ And then he goes, ‘Tiger Woods from Jupiter, Florida, with 79 PGA Tour wins.’ Tough start, but that was pretty funny.”
Woods lit up the front nine, playing it in six under. He added two more birdies early on the back and was eight under on his round through 12 holes. Hughes was no slouch, making four birdies consecutively from the seventh to the 10th.
“I just remember thinking to myself how incredibly cool it was to kind of be inside that cauldron, with him doing what he was doing,” Hughes stated. “And I kind of felt like we were the only two people out there on the golf course.”
While the low rounds were being forged, Hughes said the two chatted about families, the course and the world in general. All this while the crowd continued to surge.
“I’ve played in lots of big tournaments and been a lot of cool spots, but nothing really compared to that,” said Hughes, who finished up with a four-under 68. “I remember having these kind of insane, goose bump moments, where the hair on the back of my neck stood up when I would walk from green to tee, through this huge sea of people that were bearing down on us and screaming and yelling. The whole energy of the group was just through the roof.”
Hughes has a framed picture of he and Woods from that day hanging in his home. Looking at it brings back memories of perhaps the most memorable round of his career.
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Corey Conners, 2018 Valspar Championship
Corey Conners has never had the good fortune of playing a round with Woods, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t felt the impact of the great golfer.
At the 2018 Valspar Championship, Conners was among the leaders heading into the weekend. Woods was not far behind. When the tee times came for Saturday’s round, the two players were one group apart, with the Canadian one group behind.
A 67 by Woods pushed him up the leaderboard and one back of Conners as they battled for the title. It was after the round when the Canadian felt the presence of Woods.
“I remember finishing the third round and going to the scoring tent,” Conners stated. “Tiger was in the media scrum area, and I heard him mention my name. I thought that was pretty cool. It was in the sense of how much young talent there was on the tour, but he didn’t know much about me. But he mentioned my name and that was pretty cool.”
These days, the two have a casual friendship and chat when they are together, most recently at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. Woods will often ask his Canadian friend if he’s still hitting those silky draws, indicating he knows Conners’ game.
“I’m still in complete awe of what he was able to do,” said Conners. “When I’m around him, he’s larger than life. For me, I grew up idolizing him and now I see how much he’s done for the game and how big of a star, and arguably one of the greatest-ever golfers. You know, when I’m around him, I still have a sense of being starstruck, as if I don’t really belong in the same conversation or same grouping as him.”
That sense of awe isn’t surprising for Conners, who grew up wearing out a VHS tape of Woods’ win at the 1997 Masters. He played it hundreds of times and had shot after shot memorized.
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Mike Weir, 1999 PGA Championship
Mike Weir was in his second year on the PGA Tour when he was first paired up with Tiger Woods. It came at the Western Open where the two found themselves in the final group on Sunday.
“I’d just come from the Canadian Skins Game in Quebec, which I won so I had a lot of confidence coming in,” recalled Weir. “He had a three-shot lead which I narrowed to one shot, and I felt I might be able to catch him. But he holed this flop from behind the green on the 10th and really never looked back. His short game was amazing back then.”
While the galleries were huge for that event, it was nothing compared to Weir’s next pairing with Woods, which came in the final round of the 1999 PGA Championship.
“That was a totally different experience,” explained Weir. “I mean, that was in the last group of a major, playing with him, and really, everybody’s there to see him. I remember when it was all said and done. I remember thinking I didn’t realize I needed security.”
Playing in the last group of a major championship can mean a lot of boisterous and sometimes over-the-edge fans. Doing so with Woods in the group is another matter.
“Even before tee off, you have to have things in order,” stated Weir. “The crowds were so big that if he walked off the green before I did, it took me a couple minutes to get to the tee because I couldn’t get through the crowds. I remember, Butchie (his caddie, Brennan Little) trying to play fullback, and move people out of there. But everybody was just clamoring to see Tiger. So loud and chaotic. That was probably the hard part of playing with him in those days, just managing that.”
Woods would go on to win that PGA Championship, edging a youthful Sergio Garcia by a stroke. Weir would post a score of 80 and finish tied for 10th.
Weir and Woods battled often through the peaks of their careers and remain good friends. It was Woods who slipped the Green Jacket onto Weir when the Canadian won the Masters. Although they don’t see each other that much these days, the two have a regular dinner date on Tuesday of Masters week along with the other past champions.
And perhaps they will battle each other again, if Woods decides to play events on PGA Tour Champions, for which he’s now eligible.
“That would be awesome,” Weir stated. “Obviously it’s great for golf to have him back, but looking on as a competitor and just seeing what he’s gone through the last few years, it would be just great to see him playing golf again.”
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I’ve had many interactions with Woods over the years, both the chance to interview him and opportunities to engage socially. One on one, I’ve always found him to be engaging and likable, ready to share a laugh. Sure there have been plenty of press centre interviews that have stretched on for too long where he talked without really saying that much, but even those have faded in recent years as he becomes more open to sharing his feelings.
Of all the times I’ve been with Woods, here is one that stands out.
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In 2009, Woods was hired to play a made-for-tv event at Fox Harb’r Golf Resort on Tatamagouche, N.S., the facility created by Tim Hortons co-founder Ron Joyce.
The format had Woods taking on the scramble bestball of his coach at the time, Hank Haney, and former NBA star Charles Barkley, who was known for having the most herky-jerky, unorthodox golf swing ever seen.
My role was as the on-course interviewer, chatting with the three players from time to time as the round unfolded. The event was taped and progressed with stops and starts as cameras were repositioned from hole to hole.
At one break where we overlooked the ocean, Woods gazed at a massive yacht that was anchored just offshore.
“Whose boat is that?” he asked me.
“That belongs to Ron Joyce, the owner of this place,” I answered.
“Oh ya, how did he make all his money again?” Woods questioned.
“He owned Tim Hortons, this famous cross-country chain that sells coffee and donuts,” I replied.
He wanted to know who Tim Horton was, and when I answered, Woods said: “Everything’s about hockey up here isn’t it?”
Woods laughed at his own joke and just continued to stare at the boat and nodded his head. Then, without moving his eyes he replied: “I gotta say, that’s a lot of f***cking donuts.”