In 2001, the world was well into Tiger-mania. It wasn’t quite the same as Beatle-mania, but having lived through both eras, I can say with certainty, there were similarities. Only with Tiger, it was grown men chasing a golfer from hole to hole instead of teenage girls chasing four 20-plus-year-old young men wherever they went. Both involved screaming at the objects of their affections, but the octaves of the yells were different. And no one yelled Mashed Potatoes at the Beatles. At least so far as I know.
But 2001 was definitely the year of The Tiger Slam. You remember that. It actually started when Tiger Woods, who did not win the 2000 Masters, won the 2000 U.S. Open, the 2000 British Open, the 2000 PGA and then went on to win the Masters in 2001.
When his detractors suggested it wasn’t the same because he hadn’t completed the feat in a calendar year, Woods just said something like, “I have all the trophies on my mantel at the same time.”
Pretty good comeback. No one could disagree with that.
However, most people forget that he also won THE PLAYERS in 2001, two weeks before he won the Masters. That means he won the five biggest and best-est tournaments in the world in less than a year span. This period of Woods’ career is considered the peak of his playing ability. Few will argue that point, even the most argumentative of so-called golf experts.
One difference in the 2001 PLAYERS is that, unlike many of Woods’ victories, he didn’t start the first day in the lead and build on it every day, causing the rest of the field to feel completely discouraged by the time one or two rounds were played. Everybody knew Woods didn’t give up leads. He built on them.
For instance, at the U.S. Open in 2000, he was two shots ahead of Miguel Angel Jimenez, now on the PGA TOUR Champions circuit, after the first round. But after the second round, he was six shots up on all his chasers. By the end of the third, he was 10 shots clear. And at the end, he won by 15 shots over Jimenez and Ernie Els. A 15-shot margin was unheard of in golf. It still is.
A.I. factoid: Woods broke the record of a 13-shot victory margin set by Old Tom Morris in 1862.
Next, at the British Open, held at St. Andrews that year, Ernie Els had the first-round lead, but one shot back were Woods and Steve Flesch. By round two, Woods’ was in the lead with a margin of three shots over David Toms. Then Woods put his foot down. At the end of 54 holes, he led by six. And at the conclusion, he won by eight shots with Ernie Els and Thomas Bjorn finishing second.
A.I. Factoid: Woods tied the biggest margin at the British Open since 1900.
At the PGA Championship, scoring was much closer.
While everyone knew Woods, it was a lesser-known Southern California golfer, Bob May, who took him to the mat. May had played junior golf with Woods but had never faced off against him professionally. At the end of four rounds, they were tied. It would be a playoff.
A.I. factoid #1: Woods and May both had 31s on the back nine of the final round, both had the lowest 72-hole score in relation to par (18-under-par 270) in PGA Championship history at that time.
The playoff itself is often remembered for a putt Woods hit at the 16th hole. After making the stroke, he saw that the ball was on line. He ran behind the ball pointing at it, as though willing the ball to go in. Of course, it did.
A.I. factoid #2: When Woods defeated May in that playoff, he became the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three major championships in one year. They are the only two to have accomplished that feat.
Seven months later came the 2001 PLAYERS.
March rolled around. At THE PLAYERS, Woods didn’t have the lead after round one, two or three.
Paul Azinger was in the lead after the first round. Vijay Singh was one shot back tied with Scott Hoch and Jonathan Kaye. Woods, who shot 72, was six shots back of Azinger, who posted a 66.
Woods was asked about his confidence level.
“I was confident that my ball-striking, I had the chance to hit the ball well here. It was just a matter of if I could hole some putts,” he said. “I started out holing them. I hit a lot of good putts today that didn’t go in. Yeah, I thought I was capable of doing something special here.”
Woods said the combination of the treacherous design of the course and the constantly changing winds made the first round difficult.
“It would either calm down and pick up and then come out a different direction,” he explained. “For instance, we played No. 13 dead downwind. We played No. 14 straight in our face, and that’s the same direction. It’s just hard to pick a club.”
What he meant was that the holes both went in the same direction, and if you’ve ever been out to that part of the course, you know it’s true.
After round two, Jerry Kelly emerged as sole leader, one ahead of Azinger, Hoch, Singh and Kenny Perry.
Kelly had concerns about the 17th early in his round.
“I thought about 17, it must have been on the fourth hole, thinking about my wind direction. That is what it can do to you. It can kind of nag at you if you are not thinking properly,” he admitted. “You just have to really block everything out when you come to it and know it is just an 8-iron like any other shot and go ahead and make a good swing.”
He was asked how he felt seeing his name on the leaderboard.
“I’m pretty pleased,” he answered. “This is the players’ major. You know, there is no two ways to say it. In our books, this is just as strong as any major. There’s no question. If they could — if they could make five, we’d make five. But Tiger would win probably 47.”
Woods was asked what players thought about the 17th.
“It is wonderful for the fans to watch, but I think any player who plays out here who actually understands the game, I don’t think they are really going to say they like it,” he said.
In round three, Kelly held his own. He was still two shots ahead of Woods. This is the round where the famous “Better Than Most” putt was made by Woods at the 17th. And that 60-footer wasn’t just better than most. It was better than any other. Ever.
Woods described his plan for getting the 60-footer close.
“I just need the ball coming off the slope, going at the hole, because when it goes at the hole, from where I’m standing, as it catches the slope, it will go straight left. And as it goes left, it just dies and comes back to the right,” Woods said. “It started peeling back to the right, I kind of have a pretty good feeling I would have a chance.”
He said he probably put his putter in the air a little sooner than he should have.
“I just had a good feeling about it,” he admitted. “It just snuck in somehow from the right.”
Kelly noted that he had played well enough on Saturday that he could face being in what he called “the eye of the hurricane.” That’s what he expected playing with Woods could be like. He had not done it before.
“Let's see, I'm playing with Tiger — I don't think I am the favorite. I am the big underdog. And that’s fine with me,” Jerry Kelly said bravely.
Vijay Singh had gotten himself into the mix, and he said the course conditions had changed on Saturday. The greens were much softer.
“I think it is better for the guys that are behind so they can fly the ball to the greens instead of playing conservatively to the middle of the greens,” he said. “I was looking forward to playing like the course was set up yesterday, but I guess you just have to play the golf course the way it is set up. Right now, it is set up soft, so you have to just go out there and do your thing.”
Final Round: Sunday & Monday
Weather never goes to plan, does it? So it was with the final round of THE PLAYERS in 2001.
A.I. failed to find the stop time on Sunday, the restart time on Sunday or tee times for the rest of the final round on Monday.
Old school fact check did find some of those things: The horn to stop play was sounded at 1:08 p.m. Sunday. Play did not resume until after 4 p.m., and there were 22 players on the course when that happened. Play was halted for darkness at 6:49 p.m. The rest of the final round was scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday.
In the stop/start process, Kelly held his own for four holes on Sunday when he dropped a stroke to Woods. He started at 11-under par, made a birdie at the 2nd, a par five. He went to 12-under par.
Woods started at 10-under par and made eagle on the 2nd to go to 12-under par. He and Kelly were then tied.
A.I. factoid: A.I. said Kelly and Woods had played nine holes when play was halted on Sunday. So, somewhere around the middle of the round, we can safely say play was stopped.
On the back nine Monday morning, Woods got his mojo back. He made birdie at the 9th, 10th, 12th and 16th to get to 15-under par, before making bogey at the last.
Kelly was just not able to match or make more birdies during the rest of the round.
(And you can see the scorecard numbers here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Players_Championship)
Vijay Singh ended up finishing second. “My coach is with me, he said, ‘Well, you know, if you were not playing Monday, you’re going to come out here tomorrow anyway, so it’s no big deal.’"
Singh, if you did not know, had the reputation for practicing so much that he wore out the grass at TPC Sawgrass.
