Tiger Woods dominated golf in his prime, but he undoubtedly saved his very best for the 2000 season.
Woods won the US Open, The Open Championship and the PGA Championship in 2000, cementing his status as one of the greatest golfers to have ever lived.
Bob May was narrowly beaten in a playoff at the PGA Championship, but Woods had won the other two events by huge margins.
The dominant force in the game clinched the US Open by a mammoth 15 shots, before securing The Open by a hugely impressive eight shots.
The three seasons Byron Nelson claimed were better than Tiger Woods in 2000
It was a year that his fellow golfing icon Byron Nelson was tasked with discussing on Golf Talk Live back in 2001.
He was asked to rank the seasons of Bobby Jones in 1930, his own in 1945, Ben Hogan’s in 1953 and that of Woods in 2000.
Nelson replied: “I would rank them in the way you just started. Jones’s has been kind of played down, his Grand Slam, in 1930.
“People now feel that the amateurs can play like the professionals but there was so little money in golf in those days that the fine amateurs stayed amateurs, because they made a living in business.
“So the top amateurs in those days, you take Jones, Francis Ouimet, Chick Evans. Those three players and to mention many more, they played wonderfully well and beat the pros.
“Now the pros are in a completely different game. The young kid now sees Tiger Woods win $1million and want to start playing golf.
“They can picture themselves trying to beat Tiger Woods or David Duval or Tom Lehman and think it’s fun to go out and play golf and make money. It wasn’t so in those days, you played golf almost just for fun.”
Comparing Tiger Woods in 2000 to Bobby Jones, Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan
Golf has, of course, changed massively since the days of Nelson, and even since the days of prime Woods.
It is, therefore, much more sensible to appreciate the greatness of the icons as opposed to comparing or contrasting them.
| Bobby Jones 1930 | Byron Nelson 1945 | Ben Hogan 1953 | Tiger Woods 2000 | |
| Events | 7 | 30 | 5 | 20 |
| Wins | 6 | 18 | 4 | 9 |
| Majors | 4 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Earnings | $0 | $60,000 | $18,000 | $9.19million |
One certainty is that each player enjoyed seasons that will never be forgotten, helping secure their places in the list of the greatest golfers ever.
While it is a near-impossible task to get on that list, the likes of Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler are currently doing their utmost to do so.
Scheffler’s 2025 season has been compared to Woods’ 2000, with the former having clinched both the PGA Championship and The Open Championship.
McIlroy meanwhile won The Masters, a feat that helped him join Woods on the exclusive list of career Grand Slam winners.
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