ST. ANDREWS – Jack Nicklaus. Ben Hogan. Gene Sarazen. Gary Player.
Tiger Woods.
To properly grasp the magnitude of Woods’ career-grand-slam-completing British Open victory yesterday, what it means in the history of the game and where Woods – at age 24 and a professional since only 1996 – fits in, you need to look at those first four above-mentioned names and understand what they have accomplished in the game.
Woods’ astounding eight-shot win means he joins those four legends as the only players ever to win all four majors at least once. That’s some serious company he’s keeping.
And of course, there was no other place it should have occurred than at the venerable, hard, fast Old Course at St. Andrews with all its history and land-mine treachery of bunkers, mounded fairways, knee-high heather and skin-cutting gorse.
Woods, the youngest to accomplish the grand slam, now owns the 1997 Masters green jacket, the 1999 PGA Championship title, the 2000 U.S. Open and now the 2000 British Open.
“To have an opportunity to take the slam here and have everything ironically come down to this tournament – at St. Andrews, the home of golf – is something I’ll never, ever forget,” Woods said.
There was no drama to this Open. No suspense.
There were no blown leads this time. No Jean Van de Velde fiascos with balls bounding in and out of the grandstands and players soaking their feet in creeks trying to hit out of them.
There was no no-name player rising from obscurity to steal this coveted championship.
There was no rain all week, no whipping winds, no weather adversity whatsoever.
There were no tears from Woods in spite of his historic week and the fact that his mother, Tida, and girlfriend, Joanna Jagoda, were at his side.
There, too, was no competition this week for Woods, who much like he was at last month’s U.S. Open at Pebble Beach (where he won by a record 15 shots) seemed to be playing a different tournament from the rest of the field.
This time, he shot 19-under-par at the British Open, breaking Nick Faldo’s record of 18-under at the 1990 Open here at St. Andrews.
While Woods extended the six-shot lead with which he entered the day, the rest of the field either ran in place or backed up.
Ernie Els and Thomas Bjorn finished second at 11-under, eight shots behind Woods, who’s now won a Masters by 12 shots, a U.S. Open by 15 and a British Open by eight.
“Did I think about [Faldo’s] record?” Woods asked, repeating a question. “I couldn’t care less about the record. All I wanted was four straight rounds in the 60s. That was something I did not do at Pebble Beach and I did not do at Augusta. I finally got the job done in a major championship, and that is very special.”
Indeed, Woods shot 67, 66, 67 and 69. Along the way, he remarkably never hit a single shot into one of the Old Course’s 112 bunkers and he carded only three bogeys, two of them at the 17th hole, one of the most difficult in all of golf.
He officially finished the job by two-putting for par from about 100 feet on the huge 18th green moments after a woman streaker burst onto the green naked and did a jig around the 18th flag stick before being escorted off the grounds.
“It was a spectacular performance, to say the least,” Duval said, referring not to the jig but to Woods.
Duval, who shot a 59 in competition at the ’99 Bob Hope, entered the day fired up about playing in the final pairing with Woods and he truly believed he could at least put some heat on Woods.
He birdied four of the first seven holes and sliced the six-shot lead to merely three. But Duval, who made the turn with Woods just three back, faltered on 12 and 13 with bogeys while Woods birdied 10, 12 and 14. By the time they reached the 15th tee Woods was 20-under and Duval was 12-under and there was no longer any game.
When Woods putted out on the 72nd and final hole, he first hugged his caddie, New Zealander Steve Williams, and then he and Duval, good friends, embraced.
The record crowd around the expansive area of Nos. 18 and 1 was electric, with fans straining for a look at the legend-in-the-making from the surrounding grandstands and with kids screaming, “We love you, Tigah.”
When he was handed the Auld Claret Jug for his treasured victory – his name freshly inscribed into the silver – Woods stared at it and handled it like a youngster in awe of an opened gift on Christmas morning.
From a 24-year-old who seemingly has everything he could possibly want in life, there was a youthful innocence to the scene.
Two years ago, after Woods’ close friend Mark O’Meara won the British Open at Royal Birkdale, he and Woods flew home together and O’Meara gave the fabled cup to Woods to look at.
“He held it and knew he wanted it someday,” O’Meara recalled.
Now he has it. He has everything.
SIDEBAR: TIGER’S TALE OF WOW!
The following is a list of Tiger Woods’ accomplishments in winning the 129th British Open at St. Andrews yesterday.
