No player has a more impressive record at The Memorial Tournament over the years than Tiger Woods, with the 49-year-old winning at Muirfield Village on five occasions across his career.
The Memorial Tournament is set to host the large majority of the PGA Tour‘s best players this week in the latest signature event. For some, it will be their final start before the US Open next month.
And there seems to be a good chance of Jack Nicklaus‘ tournament being decided in a playoff. Six of the last 11 stagings of the event have gone to additional holes.
Meanwhile, Scottie Scheffler finished just one shot clear of Collin Morikawa in 2024.
Why Paul Azinger apologised to Tiger Woods after the final round of the 2001 Memorial Tournament
Just two players have ever won The Memorial by five or more shots. Tom Lehman was the first to achieve that in 1994 as he reached 20 under par – which remains the record for the lowest score to par in the tournament’s history.
Meanwhile, Tiger Woods would win by a combined 14 shots as he went back-to-back-to-back between 1999 and 2001. The largest victory would come in the final year of that run as Woods finished seven shots clear of both Sergio Garcia and Paul Azinger.
Azinger had actually started the final day one shot ahead of Woods. However, a 66 for the latter saw him leave his rivals behind.
In fact, the manner of the victory was so emphatic that Azinger admitted afterwards that he felt compelled to apologise to Woods.
“I hate that we didn’t have a closer fight. I even apologised to him, because I think at this point, he looks so bored, almost. I mean, I just said, hey, I’m sorry I didn’t give you a better game. We were walking down 17 and I said, ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t a better player for you today’,” he said.
“Today, he was just able to hit irons and just coast on in. Obviously, he has done that a few times. I would not say overall he’s bored, no. But I would say today he was able to coast on in and I really regret that I could not have played a little better. I thought it was going to happen for me. I thought I was going to focus and just play more steady, but it just didn’t happen.
“I think my long game wasn’t great the whole tournament. Clearly, I didn’t drive it like I wanted to. I’ve got some things I need to work on and here I finished second and I’m all bummed out. I’m not trying to beat myself up, certainly, I’m happy, I’m going to make a lot of money and all that. But I realize for me to contend at the U.S. Open, my long game has to get better and in the end, that’s what I want to be able to do.”
What Jack Nicklaus said about Tiger Woods after he won The Memorial by seven shots
Azinger went on to call Woods the most dominant athlete in sporting history. At the time, of course, Woods was the holder of all four major titles, having completed the Tiger Slam earlier in the year at The Masters.
And while Jack Nicklaus was not quite ready to agree with Azinger’s claim wholeheartedly, he did admit that he had never seen anything like Woods in the game of golf.
“I don’t know about the history, but certainly, since I’ve been playing the sport, I’ve never found anybody that’s dominated anything more. Some of the comparisons that [Jim] Nantz was trying to run with me on television, I come in a very distant second,” he said.
“And certainly, there’s other sports that the guys have dominated, but I don’t think anybody has dominated an individual sport anywhere near the level that he has dominated anything at. Tennis would be the only other game, and I don’t see anybody that dominated quite to that level. You know, what he’s done has been pretty special, and what amazes me, is that week after week, he’s prepared. There’s never a slack. And that’s pretty special when you can do that.”
It is hard to imagine how difficult it would have been to see anyone else winning the US Open shortly after. However, Woods’ run would end at Southern Hills, with Retief Goosen winning in a playoff.
But Woods would get his hands on the US Open trophy again one year later, with a three-shot win over Phil Mickelson.
Receive exclusive golf news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
