Tiger Woods has always played to win. Since he turned professional in 1996, he has won 82 tournaments, including 15 major championships. Perhaps more surprising than the wins and majors is the streak of 142 events snapped that lasted over a seven-year period from 1998 to 2005, when he was the most dominant golfer the game has ever seen.
Woods never said he was the best. It was not necessary. “There’s no point in going to a tournament if you don’t think you can win it,” he once said.
However, upon arriving at the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, Woods was circumspect about his chances of hoisting his fifth Wanamaker Trophy. When asked about the state of his game, he admitted that he was rusty and that the spate of injuries had taken its toll on his body. “I can still make shots,” he said Tuesday. “What it’s about solving is more the difficulty that I face day to day and the recovery of putting in the effort whether in practice or on competition days.”
As the tournament began Thursday, Woods, making his 23rd appearance at the PGA Championship, served as the part-time player he has become in recent years. On his way to a 1-over par 72, the 48-year-old World Golf Hall of Famer hit some good shots but barely kept pace in a first round in which a record 64 players shot for below par.
“It’s just the competitive flow,” he said after the round. “It probably took me three holes to get back into the competitive flow again and feel how to hit the ball competitively, adrenaline, temperatures, green speeds. These are all things that I usually adapt to very quickly, and it just took me a few holes to get there.”
Tiger Woods holds the Wanamaker Trophy after winning the 82nd PGA Championship on August 20, 2000 at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky.
David Cannon/Getty Images
By Friday afternoon, the tournament had been temporarily overshadowed by the early morning arrest of Scottie Scheffler, the game’s No. 1-ranked player, for allegedly disobeying a police officer’s order at the entrance to Valhalla Golf Club. Looking invincible like the Woods of old, Scheffler calmed down after the shock of being handcuffed and taken to jail to shoot a 5-under par 66 to start the weekend with a chance to win his second major of the year. after winning the Masters. last month. While Scheffler was on his way to answer questions about spending time in a Louisville cell, Woods was starting his round and would need a good one to avoid missing just his 15th cut in 93 major appearances.
Starting his second round two shots shy of the projected 1-under cut, Woods broke par on his first four holes to ensure he would miss the cut. It’s hard to imagine the worst-case scenario for a player already battling competitive rust and old age in a game dominated by much younger players. Here he was, looking ahead to the next tournament, the next chance to prove he could still play in next month’s US Open at Pinehurst, but trapped for five hours on a golf course where he had solidified his legend 24 years earlier in an epic duel. . with Bob May at the 2000 PGA Championship.
Back then, when Woods was in the prime of his career, he converted the Jack Nicklaus-designed Valhalla Golf Club into a theater with a two-act play and May as his benevolent antagonist. In the final round of 2000, they matched stroke for stroke, creating drama unprecedented in the history of televised golf. Then, in the three-hole aggregate playoff, Woods survived and won by one stroke. That victory at Valhalla was the third leg of the Tiger Slam, which culminated when Woods won the 2001 Masters.
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But these are different times in the game of golf. In 2000, the PGA Tour was at the beginning of a period of monumental growth in which an outsized talent with a mixed racial heritage was transforming what had long been identified as a country club sport played primarily by white people. For many, Woods was the game and the PGA Tour was his home. Now no longer the masterful player capable of holding your attention for hours on Sunday with his feats of excellence, Woods has become a senior statesman in the game and an advocate for what he has helped build in the sport over the years. the last 30 years.
As the biggest name on both the PGA Tour Policy Board and the PGA Tour Business Board, Woods has become one of the most powerful figures in negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund (PIF). ) from Saudi Arabia, which finances LIV Golf. During what is proving to be a slow and painful exit from competitive golf, Woods is helping to set the direction of the game’s future.
In Valhalla, he assumed his new role.
“We’re trying to make the PGA TOUR the best it can be day in and day out,” he said Tuesday. “That’s one of the reasons we have arguments and disagreements, but we want to do what’s best for everyone in golf and the TOUR.”
Regarding the PGA Tour’s negotiations with LIV Golf, he said, “we are taking steps and they may not be giant steps, but we are taking steps.”
Easily missing the cut at the PGA Championship after a six-over par 77 on Friday, Woods took no steps to regain a spot at the top of the top-player pecking order. In Valhalla, he still dominated the biggest galleries, as he did when he won there 24 years ago. Back then, many considered him the savior of the game, and on Sunday afternoons he would deliver an inspiring and life-changing sermon with his golf clubs.
That seemingly omnipresent presence on Sundays is waning, but his star still shines brightly on these players who are still playing on the weekend on a stage he set up for them.
Farrell Evans has written about the intersection of race and sports for many publications, including Sports Illustrated, Golf Magazine, GQ, The Oxford American, Bleacher Report, Keynote USA.com, and Andscape, where he regularly writes about golf.
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