THE PLAYERS Championship: A look back at Tiger Woods’ “better than most” putt from 2001
By Luke Norris
A look back at Tiger Woods’ incredible “better than most” putt from THE PLAYERS Championship in 2001.
Tiger Woods is one of the greatest golfers the world has ever seen. One could almost say that he’s…better than most. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.
Coming into THE PLAYERS Championship in 2001, Tiger Woods was easily the most dominant golfer on the planet. He had won the last three major championships in 2000 and would go on to complete the “Tiger Slam” at The Masters in April. But before heading to Augusta, Tiger had another big stop to make, that being the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. This is back when THE PLAYERS was held in March and was the biggest event on tour before the major championship season got rolling and of course, Woods was expected to win. He was expected to win every single tournament he entered at that time but seeing as how THE PLAYERS is golf’s unofficial fifth major, the pressure was magnified.
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While many expected Tiger to come right out of the box and dominate, that simply wasn’t the case. He shot an even-par 72 in the opening round and trailed leader Paul Azinger by six strokes, the same deficit he would face after shooting a 3-under 69 in his second round. Jerry Kelly went low with a 66 on day two to get to 9-under. But as Tiger tended to to back then, he got himself right back into contention on day three.
After starting his third round with a bogey at No. 1, Tiger made birdies at No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 to get to 5-under for the tournament and parred the next five holes for a front-nine 34. After another par at No. 10, Woods eagled the 11th, birdied the 12th and following three straight pars birdied the par-15 16th, getting him to 6-under for the day.
Woods came to the famed 17th hole at Sawgrass with revenge on his mind after taking a disastrous double-bogey the day before and nearly found trouble again after his tee shot ended up on the fringe on the back side of the island green, just a couple of feet from getting wet and some 60 feet away from the hole. And then something magical happened. Take a look.
There’s just no way that ball should have gone in, am I right? If you’ll recall, everybody else from that same spot had come nowhere close. Fred Funk had actually four-putted from just about that same spot earlier in the day but this was Tiger Woods. And the call from Gary Koch made the moment that much better. It stands as one of the greatest calls in golf history and most people would say that the call itself is better than most. Okay, I’ll stop doing that now.
What most people don’t remember is that Tiger went on to bogey the closing hole but still ended up with a 66 to get himself to 9-under for the tournament, just two shots back of Kelly. And of course, Tiger would go on to win the tournament with a 5-under 67 in his final round, which was split between Sunday and Monday due to inclement weather. The beauty is that Woods won by one stroke and that one memorable stroke on Saturday afternoon was…well…nope, I said I wouldn’t do it again but you know what I was going to say.
Next: THE PLAYERS: A look back at Fred Couples' crazy par at No. 17 in 1999
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