Andy Capostagno golf
This was the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese calendar, but if it is possible for one man to influence the heavens then it was quite definitely the Year of the Tiger. A young American wrote his name in the history books so consistently there can be little doubt that this was the most remarkable season anyone has ever had in golf.
This year Tiger Woods (24) won 11 events worldwide on his own and ended by retaining the World Cup in Buenos Aires with compatriot David Duval. He also shared in the United States team’s demolition of the Rest of the World in the President’s Cup and along the way built up such a lead in the world rankings that he could go without a win for the whole of next year and still be ranked number one.
There are only three players in the long history of the game who come within hailing distance of what Woods achieved. In 1930 Bobby Jones did the Grand Slam, which in those days was the US and British Opens, the US and British Amateurs. In 1945 Byron Nelson won 11 tournaments in a row on the US tour, one of the few marks that it seems even Woods will never approach.
Three years later Ben Hogan won six in a row, and in 1953 he won the three major championships he entered, finding the USPGA clashed with qualifying for the British Open.
Woods equalled Hogan’s six in a row when he won the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in the first week of February. He equalled the mark of three majors in a season when he won the USPGA at Valhalla in August.
By then there was certain inevitability to the season, but it was not always thus. Woods won the last four tournaments he played in on the US Tour in 1999, then beat Ernie Els in a play-off for the Mercedes Championship before winning at Pebble Beach, thereby matching Hogan’s 1948 efforts.
Phil Mickelson stopped the streak at the Buick Invitational in the second week of February, when Woods had to settle for second place. Two weeks later he lost again, this time in the final of the Andersen Consulting Match Play where Northern Irishman Darren Clarke won by the convincing margin of four and three.
At the end of March Hal Sutton became the third man to beat Woods into second place at the Tournament Players Championship, an event often referred to as the fifth major. And in May, when Woods could only manage fifth place in the US Masters there was reason to believe that he was only human after all.
Those were days of hope for the rest of the world’s golfers. In June, back at Pebble Beach, Woods began the march that would break the spirit of all those deluded enough to believe that they could genuinely compete with him.
At Pebble Beach he became the first player to finish a US Open double digits under par (he was -12), and his 15-stroke victory was the largest in the 140-year history of majors. Els finished in second place at three over par and admitted it was hard to feel elated when the man who beat him was so far in front.
In the Open Championship at St Andrews in July Els was second again, eight shots behind Woods who also set a major championship record by finishing at 19 under par. And by finishing at 18-under 270 at Valhalla Golf Club in the PGA he overtook his idol, Jack Nicklaus, to become at 24 the youngest man ever to win all four major championships. It becomes almost incidental that he now owns scoring records in all four.
Not surprisingly, Woods cleaned up at the end of season awards banquet. He won nine US tour events, the most since Sam Snead won 11 times in 1950. He also shattered Byron Nelson’s scoring average with 68,17, and won the tour’s Byron Nelson Award with an adjusted scoring average of 67,79.
Happily, Nelson was around to see it all and one can only wonder what the old man, who retired when he had earned enough money to buy a farm, made of Woods’s earning power. The young American earned a record $9 188 321 to win his third money title in only his fourth full season on tour, all of which is so much loose change when put alongside his endorsement contracts with the likes of Nike.
There are no new worlds to conquer for Woods until 2025, when he will qualify to play the Senior Tour. Only two things can stop him from continuing to rewrite the record books; serious injury or serious emotional entanglement. Right now he is Samson and his competitors can only hope there is a Delilah out there waiting to cut his hair.
Until then, the future is painted in orange and black stripes.