Hyderabad: 23 years ago a 21-year-old young boy took the golf world by storm as he won his first major championship as a professional, clinching the game's most prestigious tournament, Masters Championship, by an incredible 12 strokes on April 13th, 1997.
Tiger Woods became the youngest player to win a Green Jacket.
The victory at the Masters was so complete that even Woods found it hard to believe. With a smiling face, Woods hugged his father, Earl Woods, as he became the first man of colour to win a major professional golf championship.
Tiger Woods wearing his first Green Jacket after his 1997 Masters Championship title win. His 12-stroke victory over Tom Kite was not only a Masters record by three strokes but the greatest winning margin in any major since Tom Morris Sr. won the 1862 Open Championship by 13 strokes.
On this day in 1997, golf legend Tiger Woods wins his first major at Augusta. Two decades after that Masters Championship victory Woods is now regarded as golf's second most successful player after Jack Nicklaus with 15 majors under his belt. The American golfer won his 15th and last major title in 2019 when he won the Masters Tournament for the record fifth time. It must be told that there was a gap of 17 years between Woods' 14th and 15 majors. During this time, his life was marred with controversies, accident and injuries which saw golf's most loved son making the headlines for all wrong reasons.
Dramatic rise of a youngster
Woods' rise was so smooth that he became an invincible player since his maiden major title win in 1997. With his victory at the 2001 Masters, Woods scripted a world record as he became the first player to win consecutively the four major tournaments of golf, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open (Open Championship), and the PGA Championship.
Tiger Woods' performance at majors. Woods was born to an African American father, Earl Woods, and Thai mother, Kultida Woods on 30 December 1975 in the city of Cypress, California. Since a very young age, Woods was a gifted player.
In 1991, at age 15, he became the youngest winner of the US Junior Amateur Championship and went on to bag the 1992 and 1993 Junior Amateur titles. He then won three consecutive US Amateur Championships. A Stanford University alumnus, Woods, turned professional on August 29, 1996. In his first season in the pro circuit, he won two titles and was named the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year.
After stunning the golf world at the 1997 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Woods became the first golfer in more than two decades to win eight PGA tournaments in a year in 1999.
In June 2000, Woods created history with his record-breaking win at the US Open. His 15-stroke victory was the largest winning margin at a major championship. By July 23, Woods became only the fifth player in golf history to complete a career Grand Slam of four major championships by winning the British Open. He then clinched successive Masters titles in 2001 and 2002 respectively.
Tiger Woods won whopping 15 majors in his career which is second most after Jack Nicklaus' 18. However, Woods saw a dip in his form in 2005. After a hopeless performance in major tournaments, he won his fourth Masters and the British Open. But 2006 witnessed Woods roaring back to his destructive form winning nine events, including the British Open and the PGA Championship. In 2007, he defended his title bagging the 13th major championship. Two months after undergoing knee surgery in 2008, Woods grabbed his third US Open title.
However, Woods' magnificent performance at the US Open came at a cost as it aggravated the damage to his knee that saw him withdrawing from the remainder of the 2008 golf season to have another knee surgery. He made a comeback in 2009 winning a number of tournaments but major titles eluded him for the first time since 2004. At the same time, his streak of having never lost a major tournament was broken when he lost the PGA Championship after being ahead by two strokes before the final round.
Controversies and fall of his golf empire
An early morning car-accident in Florida led to severe media scrutiny into his personal life in 2010. There came the shock when it was revealed that Woods, who got married to Elin Nordegren in 2004, was involved in a number of extramarital affairs. The revelation led to divorce and it took a beating at his reputation. He lost a great number of endorsement deals. Finding himself in trouble, Woods took an indefinite break from golf in order to spend more time with his family.
After enviable success in the early 2000s, Tiger Woods took a break from golf for an indefinite time in the light of controversies. He returned in April 2010 for the Masters. But he was nowhere close to his old best as his 2010 golf season included no tournament wins and the worst four-round score of his professional career. Failure had become a regular affair in Woods' career.
In an already ruined world, Woods' personal life once again came under scrutiny in May 2017 when he was arrested for driving under the influence of sleep and pain medications.
Woods' return to stardom
Woods finally managed to leave the world of bad things in 2018 when he played a full season after a gap of almost eight years. He demonstrated a thrilling comeback winning the Tour Championship tournament in September, his first victory in five years.
Tiger Woods celebrates after clinching his 15th major. In April 2019, he left all the wrong news behind when he won his fifth Masters and the much-cherished Green Jacket. Now as the 2020 season seems almost impossible in the light of COVID-19 pandemic Woods' chance of defending the gold's most prestigious title is not going to happen. But the 43-year-old legend doesn't want to lose hope as the 'TIGER' never steps back.
