If explaining what Tiger Woods did during tournaments was simple, there would surely not have been such a large gap between him and the rest of the golfing world while he was at the peak of his powers.
Tiger Woods has, so far, won 15 major titles, with 14 of those wins coming in just over a decade between 1997 and 2008. And had it not been for injuries, he would have surely overtaken Jack Nicklaus‘ record of 18 major titles.
And he seemed to be unlike anyone else as a competitor. Woods lost one play-off in his entire PGA Tour career, while he had finished in the top 10 in 41 of 81 major starts up until his Masters victory in 2019.
He certainly had another gear to go to when the finish line started to emerge into view. Just one player ever stopped Woods winning a major in which he had held the 54-hole lead.
Geoff Ogilvy explains how Tiger Woods would change over a tournament
And it seems that Woods would indeed change his demeanour as the tournament would go on. Speaking to Subpar earlier this year, 2006 US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy explained what would become different about Woods on the weekend when he was in contention.
“Of course, Tiger, every single time there was high expectations, he’d go and do well, so he goes and wins the tournament. That to me, was the best. We’ve all played with guys like DJ and Brooks and Scottie and Sergio and these guys who can play outrageous golf, like ‘wow, this is a really high level’, but Tiger, every time the expectations were high, he met them, or exceeded them. Never didn’t exceed expectations, and I don’t know how you do that, because that’s the biggest anchor in golf, your own expectations,” he said.
“He was a genius at finishing 72 holes in front of everyone else. Thursday, Friday, he was pretty casual and you’d be able to talk to him like it was a Thursday, Friday with anyone else. Saturday, he’d be a little bit more serious. And Sunday, you couldn’t talk to him. He wouldn’t even look anyone in the eye, he was almost meditating. He was walking really slow, really measured, and he just somehow knew how to get to the end in front of everyone else.”
Why Tiger Woods’ 2019 Masters was unprecedented in his incredible career
Woods is one a handful of career grand slam winners in golf’s history. He is the player with the second highest number of men’s major wins. And he brought an entirely different audience to the game when he burst onto the scene in the 1990s.
But his victory in 2019 Masters was, quite literally, like nothing else Woods had done in his career. Somehow, it was the only time where he trailed heading into the final round of a major and went on to win.
Previously, he had held the 54-hole lead 11 times, while he was tied for the lead on three occasions, before going on to win. But at Augusta National in 2019, he found himself two shots back of Francesco Molinari before emerging from the pack on the back nine on Sunday to win.
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