Jordan Spieth, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods
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In a special life, when the one factor Tiger Woods was making an attempt to ace was highschool algebra, I used to be requested to cowl the Masters for the primary time. And but it has all the time felt like I began overlaying golf’s signature occasion in 1997, when a 21-year-old Woods grabbed your complete sport by the throat.
He famously shot 40 on his opening 9 holes of that match earlier than enjoying the following 9 in 30 then destroying the sphere in report trend. This was the daybreak of a staggering new period within the recreation, as Woods would show that a golfer — of all issues and of all individuals — may stand among the many three or 4 most recognizable figures on the planet.
My want to cowl the Masters going ahead was actually tethered to my want to cowl Woods’ makes an attempt to maintain successful it. It’s been a hell of a journey for him at Augusta Nationwide — together with 5 indelible triumphs, a couple of heartbreaking defeats, one inappropriate scolding from the membership chairman over his infidelity and one comeback from career-threatening again accidents to finish all Masters comebacks.
That was in 2019, after a Hail Mary of a spinal-fusion surgical procedure pulled him from the brink of early retirement and restored him as a champ. Three years later, Woods appears poised to aim yet one more comeback that would prime all of them. If he makes it to the primary tee Thursday — not even 14 months after he crashed his SUV south of Los Angeles and practically misplaced his proper leg — that can make for what outdated newspaper writers used to name good copy. Actually good copy.
In the meantime, on the verge of overlaying the match for a twenty second time, I provide up a listing of essentially the most compelling Masters moments I’ve witnessed, with a sure terminator in Sunday crimson dominating my reminiscence financial institution as a lot as he dominated the sphere.
2019
This was the primary and solely time I scored a Masters ticket, which I gave to my large brother — it turned out to be our final journey collectively earlier than his dying, elevating it to my private No. 1 on the all-time checklist of sporting occasions I’ve lined over 36 years. Safety guards at Augusta Nationwide by no means minimize anybody a break from the membership’s draconian guidelines, however for some cause one allowed us to crouch down in an off-limits space close to the sixteenth inexperienced Sunday to observe Woods end off the largest birdie of his fifth and most dramatic victory. “You’ve by no means been to a significant golf championship earlier than,” I instructed my brother Dan as we hustled to the seventeenth. “And right here you might be witnessing the best Masters of all time.”
1997
Colin Montgomerie made the deadly mistake of difficult Woods on the eve of their third-round pairing, suggesting that younger Tiger may need problem dealing with the strain of holding a significant championship lead on the weekend for the primary time. Monty had no concept that Woods beloved nothing greater than changing actual or imagined slights into jet gas. Tiger went on the market Saturday and simply buried the Scotsman, outplayed him by 9 strokes. I’ll always remember Monty trying like such a overwhelmed man over the ultimate couple of holes. “We’re all human beings right here,” he stated afterward, “and there's no likelihood humanly potential that Tiger Woods goes to lose this match.” Woods gained by a dozen pictures.
1998
At age 58, needing hip substitute surgical procedure, Jack Nicklaus tore up the entrance 9 on Sunday and put himself in place to win his seventh inexperienced jacket. That’s most likely essentially the most enjoyable two hours I’ve ever spent on a golf course. Defending champ Woods, enjoying immediately in entrance of his idol, was decreased to an awestruck spectator all day, and simply tried to get out of Jack’s means. Nicklaus couldn’t make the back-nine putts he made in 1986 and completed 4 strokes behind winner Mark O’Meara. However Jack did beat Tiger, who was 36 years youthful, by two treasured pictures.
2004
At 33, Phil Mickelson lastly broke by means of and gained a significant within the Tiger Period with that perpetually downhill putt on 18 that fell by means of the left aspect door. Laborious to imagine that Lefty talked himself out of the 2022 area, but when nothing else, the recollections of his three Masters victories — particularly his first one — can’t be taken away from him.
2015
After failing to shut the yr earlier than, Jordan Spieth introduced Augusta Nationwide to its knees on the similar age (21) as Tiger was in 1997, tying Woods’ match report of 18-under. Spieth’s father Shawn gave his son a pregame pep discuss/warning in regards to the final-round adversity he was prone to face — similar to Earl Woods had carried out 18 years earlier — and Jordan by no means flinched.
2016
Spieth held a five-shot lead with 9 holes to go, and I used to be by no means extra sure of a winner in my life … earlier than I used to be by no means extra shocked by a collapse in my life. Spieth was generally known as a mentally robust competitor, so his quadruple on the twelfth had Shakespearean tragedy written throughout it. I’ll always remember him strolling to Danny Willett’s championship ceremony along with his head down and his fingers stuffed in his pockets. Spieth was sporting the inexperienced jacket he’d gained the earlier April, however he seemed like a misplaced little boy who simply had his bicycle stolen.
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