Ranking all 5 of Tiger Woods' Masters Championship Victories
Ranking Tiger Woods' Masters victories #5: 2002 Masters
It would not be right to downgrade or belittle any time that a player wins the Masters, but when you are ranking five things something has to come in 5th. Of all of Woods' 5 Masters victories, 2002 may be the least memorable.
There are not indelible images or any memorable shots that are replayed every year. It was a fairly comfortable three shot victory for Woods when he was at the height of his powers. This was back when Tiger was simply expected to win every major. He had not won one since 2001's Masters, so it seemed like he was probably due.
Tiger did not get off to a hot start, something that has been consistent in all of his Masters victories. He shot a 70 in the opening round followed by a 69 in round two which had him 4 shots back of Vijay Singh going into the weekend.
Not until the back nine on Saturday did Woods make his move to grab the lead. A 32 on the back nine got him to -11 which tied him with Retief Goosen going into the final round.
The final round was not that dramatic. Tiger did not make any huge mistakes while those who were on the leaderboard made mistakes or struggled to get anything going. At one point Tiger had a 5 shot lead on the back nine but ended up winning by three strokes.
It is telling that in a write-up after the event, everyone was always thinking that Tiger could win a Grand Slam that year. He had already held all four major championships at the same time from 2000-2001, but doing it in a calendar year already seemed like a good possibility.
That only seemed even more like a possibility after Woods won the 2002 U.S. Open before bad weather at The Open that year derailed his hopes of a Grand Slam.
Nonetheless, the 2002 Masters was won by Tiger at a time when it was simply expected that he would do so. One could argue that makes it the most remarkable, but it did not have the drama or intrigue of some of his other victories.
Now onto #4 on the rankings.