What is so remarkable about Tiger Woods’ career is how he responded to a quieter period of a couple of years by then winning a bucketload of majors – and then did exactly the same thing a few seasons later.
Tiger Woods won one major across 1998 and 1999 before winning the Tiger Slam by the end of the 2001 Masters.
And after winning two majors in 2002, Woods would endure a similar drought across 2003 and 2004, with almost three years separating majors eight and nine on his resume. In that time, Woods began working with Hank Haney.
Their partnership was hugely successful, with six majors coming during their six years working together. And had it not been for injury, you would imagine that that tally could have been even higher.
Tiger Woods’ best tournament, according to Hank Haney
While 2000 was probably the best many have ever seen anyone play golf, Woods was exceptional during his time with Haney – winning 21 times on the PGA Tour across three years. So Haney would have plenty of tournaments to pick from when to comes to deciding Woods’ best performance during their time together.
And speaking to Subpar in 2022, Haney suggested that there was one event which stands out above the others – an event perhaps made most famous for the club Woods all but ignored across the week.
“The American Express over in England, he was pretty flawless. It wasn’t the biggest tournament. It was a big tournament, I think it was a World Golf Championship. But it wasn’t a major. He was pretty good there for sure, I think he hardly missed a shot all tournament. He didn’t win at Oakmont at the Open, he came second to Cabrera and he hit 17 greens on Saturday’s round. That’s not the greatest golf course for him, that was pretty special,” he said.
“But the best tournament ever was Hoylake for sure. He played that tournament with pretty much irons only. He kind of decided that in the practice round, and it just worked out perfect for him, because he couldn’t get a driver past the bunkers, a three wood would get into the bunkers, his iron would be just short, and he’s the only one that could do that, he’s the only one that had that low stinger shot.
“Anybody else, if they had hit iron off the tee, they couldn’t hit it low enough to run it out there, so they were too far back and they had to hit driver or three wood. If you hit three wood, you might as well hit driver. It gave him an advantage on that golf course, and he played so well there, it was crazy. He holed a four iron in one round. It was just nuts.”
What Nick Faldo said about playing alongside Tiger Woods at the 2006 Open Championship
What was perhaps a little surprising about the 2006 Open Championship is that Woods never really had a moment where he had managed to leave the rest of the field behind. And yet, he never deviated from his plan to leave the driver in the bag.
Woods went into both the third and final rounds with a one shot lead. And he ended up finishing two shots ahead of Chris DiMarco.
He was actually paired with Nick Faldo over the first two days. And when asked what he said to Woods at the end of the second round, Faldo explained how impressed he had been by Woods’ strategy up until the halfway mark.
“I said, ‘As you’re not using your driver, could Matthew have it?’ He only hit it once in two days but he seems to know what he’s doing; he’s got a good game plan. If he keeps cruising like this, I predict if the weather is good he’ll get to 20 under, and good luck, who’s going to beat him then at 21 under, 22 under to win? We shall see,” he said.
Woods would fall just a couple of shots short of reaching 20 under par. However, he certainly still managed to leave a lasting legacy with his performance that week – as shown by it being the tournament which stuck out to Haney as his best.
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