At age 20, Woods was already a phenomenon. Shortly before, he had won his third amateur national championship in a row and turned professional, with an advertising contract with Nike that made him rich without ever hitting the paid circuit.
Although “Tigremania” reigned, Woods had not won any of the four tournaments in which he had participated.
At the start of the Sunday session in Las Vegas, he was within range, four strokes behind the leader. That was enough for an additional 10,000 spectators to attend, who would never have considered going to a golf tournament. They thought they could see something special, even though some players thought there was too much noise with a boy who was not yet old enough to gamble in the city of casinos.
“All you hear is Tiger, Tiger,” Fred Funk commented in an exasperated tone that week, after starting with a round of 62 that gave him temporary lead but was barely mentioned in the papers the next day. “They forget about everyone else,” he complained.
He was not exaggerating. That day, no one else was interested. Not Fred Funk. Nor Ronnie Black, who reached the final day at the head of the classification.
I was covering the tournament for The Associated Press and followed Woods’ performance as he climbed through the ranks. He had scored 63 in the second round despite sending a shot into the water on the 16th hole, par 5.
Woods showed his full potential throughout the tournament. On the third hole of the fourth round he made an eagle. In the ninth he arrived with a shot to the green while his partner on duty, Keith Fergus, fell short after two shots.
Fans had never seen anything like it. Woods sent his drives to places that no one would have ever imagined.
A new era in golf had begun. And the public was insane with the young phenomenon.
When Woods took the lead, I walked behind him and saw scenes I had never seen on a golf course. The soft applause gave way to thunderous ovations and the audience was eager to follow in his footsteps.
A four-meter (12-foot) birdie on the 14th hole, par 3, tied him for the lead. When he walked towards the 15th, the ropes could hardly contain the audience, who tried to touch Woods as he passed or implored him to give them a ball.
Woods should have played a playoff with Love. But his coronation was not going to wait.
Woods hit the green safely on the first hole of the tiebreaker, while Love’s shot landed in a bunker, which he couldn’t get out of on his next shot.
Woods had achieved the first of his 82 victories on the American circuit.
Six months later, he won his first green jacket at the Masters, the first of 15 major titles he has garnered. He is for many the best player in history.
And it all started when he won the Las Vegas tournament in his fifth professional appearance, a quarter of a century ago.
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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for the AP. You can write to him at [email protected] or at https://twitter.com/timdahlberg
