Tiger Woods: A Masterful Decade

Feature Articles

Tiger Woods, 1996Minority Golf & Sports Magazine will begin a series of features detailing the historic accomplishments of golfers of color in the United States over the past one hundred years and beyond on the pages of minoritygolfmag.com.

Additionally, we will feature a special section on the past decade of Tiger Woods. This series beginning today features eighteen articles produced by the Philadelphia Daily News. The series will be presented over the next several months and will conclude with Tiger’s thirteenth major title, the 2007 PGA Championship

Now is not the height of Tigermania. The challenge will be for him to sustain it and challenge the records of Nicklaus, Palmer and Hogan…He seems to have the ability to set a target, and do what he sets out to do. That’s what will be fun to watch.”

– PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, April 13, 1997 at Augusta National Golf Club

Redefining the “perfect 10” part one
By Mike Kern – Philadelphia Daily News

On that overcast Sunday afternoon in Georgia, on a former nursery just off the chain-food emporium that masquerades as Washington Road, a 21-year-old home run hitter sporting his mother’s power color of choice and an assassin’s glare did the unthinkable at Bobby Jones’ enduring gift to the game.

Unforgettable, too.

Tiger Woods, 2001Barely old enough to legally sip champagne at his victory dinner, he turned the most majestic 18 holes in the universe into his personal domain. Has there been a more perfect convergence? Tiger Woods, the chosen one. And Augusta National, the cathedral. The images and emotions from that mesmerizing week in April 1997 promise to resonate for as long as there’s an Amen Corner.

Yet the most endearing snapshot wasn’t any one swing, putt, or fist pump. Instead, it was an embrace. A warm, tearful bear of a hug that he shared with his father Earl as he walked off the 18th green. The man who has shared his dream for so long. This was their moment, for all the world to see. So they wrapped their arms around each other, squeezed with all their might and wept as one. Neither wanted to let go. The feelings ran way too deep. They knew this day had been a lifetime in the making.

Yet as Jim Finchem foresaw, this coronation wasn’t just a culmination. It was a precursor.

“For this kid to be doing that, I don’t know if it changed the rules,”two time U.S. Open winner Curtis Strange recalled. “But it surely made you take notice.”

Tiger Woods, 2007Tiger had six previous rounds at Augusta as an amateur and never broke par. ‘I thought I could win here when I was 19, because I was here,” Tiger said at the time. “That’s what I came here to do.”
“I learned my lessons, grew up. And it evolved into a victory.”
An emergence unlike any other.

And it’s never been the same. We sensed that he’d be special. This was way different. The playing field had shifted. Dramatically. And there has been no going back.

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