It was 25 years ago last Wednesday – Oct. 6, 1996 – that Tiger Woods won the first of his 82 PGA Tour victories, beating Davis Love III and his persimmon-headed driver in a playoff at the Las Vegas Invitational.
It’s tough to decide which is more impactful at this moment, the 82 wins or the 25 years.
When Tiger won his first tour event, his shirt big and floppy and his future as wide as the Nevada sky, the game was different and so was the world.
Woods was 20 years old, playing on a sponsor exemption and his victory was worth $297,000.
Macarena was the No. 1 song in the country (and I apologize for planting that ear worm in your psyche). Prince Charles and Princess Diana had recently divorced and the stock market was climbing toward 6,000.
The Tom Hanks movie That Thing You Do was released and Frasier Crane was dispensing advice on television.
Tiger, as we now know, was just getting started.
It happened fast, didn’t it?
Through the lens of 25 years and the jarring reality of where Woods is today, it’s possible we still don’t fully appreciate what a rare, remarkable person we’ve watched not just win golf tournaments but change the game ...
Twenty-five years on, we’re left wondering when we will see Woods again. Will he be able to walk normally after the devastating auto accident in February? Will he play golf again, even if it’s just a few casual holes with his family?
Woods has been out of sight for months. But where professional golf is concerned, he is never entirely out of mind.
At the Ryder Cup three weeks ago, Woods – unable to travel to Whistling Straits – sent a salty text that was shared among the American team, essentially urging them to be relentless, which they were.
Without revealing the specific contents of the text, team members spoke almost reverentially about not just the message but who delivered it.
“No better role model and no better leader, and just somebody that you can always learn from,” Patrick Cantlay said at Whistling Straits.
Watch This: Top PGA Tour pros in 1996 assess Tiger Woods as a rookie
Through the lens of 25 years and the jarring reality of where Woods is today, it’s possible we still don’t fully appreciate what a rare, remarkable person we’ve watched not just win golf tournaments but change the game – how it’s played and how it looks.
Not everyone has been a Woods fan but it’s been our good fortune to say we’ve been there and seen it unfold, win after win, year after year. We’ve seen Babe Ruth in his prime, Bobby Jones in his prime, Secretariat in his prime.
When Woods won in Las Vegas, he was just weeks removed from his famous “Hello world” press conference. He was still a kid who liked Taco Bell and candy bars and he was six months from winning his first Masters in record style.
The thing that separates the best of the best – Michael Jordan and Serena Williams come to mind – is the way their performance doesn’t just impress us. It challenges our imagination.
They take us not just where we can’t go, but to places we hadn’t seen anyone go before. And they do it over and over again. It’s magnetic and magnificent at the same time.
That’s what Woods has given us.
It’s fair to debate career achievements between Woods and Jack Nicklaus, but what is beyond debate is the way Tiger altered the golf landscape, expanding what seemed possible.
Nicklaus was better and mentally tougher than the guys he was beating. The moment was never too big for him. Woods was those things and more. He transformed competitive golf with his power, with his fearlessness and with his ability to believe in his own greatness.
Woods didn’t just win. He dominated like few ever have. He won tournaments in bunches, setting records in the process, and he pulled us along even as he worked so hard to keep the world outside his personal bubble.
There were times when you had to call your friends to make sure they were watching what Tiger was doing. He reached beyond golf and that’s hard for a golfer to do.
We’re left to wonder if we’ve seen it all from him, at least as a competitor. It’s likely the Zozo Championship he won two years ago was his last PGA Tour win but he’ll be remembered more for the avalanche of fans following down the hill at East Lake when he won the 2018 Tour Championship and the raw joy of his unlikely victory in the 2019 Masters.
Epic stories have epic moments and Woods has provided 25 years of those moments.
He’s missed. Hopefully, he will be back soon, maybe hosting his Hero World Challenge in December.
Woods’ story is almost too big to tell and his impact is enduring. He played the best golf ever played according to Nicklaus.
He changed the way golf looked. He created a foundation that has changed lives. He lights up these days talking about his two children.
When Woods won his first tournament, Andy North asked him if he ever dreamed it could happen so fast.
“Kind of,” Woods said.
Twenty-five years.
Time flies.
Top: The sky was the limit for 20-year-old Tiger Woods when he collected a $297,000 winner's check in 1996.
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