AUGUSTA, Ga. - Perhaps no professional golfer started his career with loftier expectations than Tiger Woods. Many of those expectations were self-imposed, by both Tiger himself and his father. Traditional golf fans scoffed when Tiger said his goal was to set the record for career majors won, and they just shook their heads when Earl Woods said Tiger would be the most important athlete in the world.
Then Tiger played his first career major, and those claims suddenly didn't seem so outlandish.
Nobody had any inkling of what was coming that week when Woods shot a 40 on the front nine in round 1. But he found his game and stormed to a six-under 30 on the back nine, ending the first round three shots behind the leader. And he never stopped charging.
A stunning 66 on Friday gave Woods the lead in a major for the first time. A bogey-free 65 on Saturday gave him a jaw-dropping nine-shot lead entering the final day. With a round still to play, Woods had completely buried the competition in a way never seen before.
Sunday's final round was nothing more than a coronation; the way he had been playing, nobody expected Woods to give back nine shots to the field. He didn't disappoint, further increasing his lead despite not playing all that sharply in the final round. His final numbers were staggering: a tournament-record score of -18 and a grand-slam record 12 shot margin of victory.
His dominance was so complete that all those predictions about Woods suddenly seemed reasonable. When Jack Nicklaus said Woods could end up winning 10 Masters, people seemed to think that was reasonable. When the TV ratings came back showing sky-high numbers despite Tiger's complete domination, Earl Woods' claims about Tiger changing the world didn't seem all that strange. And Tiger's stated goal of winning the most majors suddenly didn't seem lofty enough. He had completely changed the game, and golf has never been the same.
HONORABLE MENTION:
April 13, 1986: Augusta, Ga. - He was 46 years old, four shots behind the leader, and trailing seven players overall. Jack Nicklaus was no more than an afterthought entering the final round of the 1986 Masters. After shooting one-under on the front nine, he was pushed out of people's thoughts even more. But then he entered the back nine started. The shots started dropping. The roars got louder, echoing throughout the course. Though the leaders were several holes behind him, they knew what was going on. Jack was making a charge. When it was over, Nicklaus had shot a 30 on the back nine, a 65 overall, and had taken the lead at -9. The third-round leaders still had three holes to play, but everybody knew this one was already over. Twenty-four years after winning his first major, Nicklaus had won his 18th.
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