Want to hear something scary? Tiger Woods—golf GOAT billionaire, winner of 82 PGA Tour events and 15 majors, owner of countless eye-popping stats like this—believes that most weeks, he “didn’t really have it.”
Yes, really.
On Wednesday, the PGA Tour released a fascinating conversation with Woods. In their shiny new PGA Tour Studios theater, they screened various highlights from Woods’ decorated career, soliciting Mr. Sun Day Red’s insights and emotions. While most of Woods’ responses were variations on the same Tigerisms we’ve heard time and time again, about six minutes into the video he did make the almost absurd revelation that most weeks, even those that ended with him lifting a trophy, he felt almost as if he was underachieving.
“People are probably amazed to hear this,” Woods said with a wry smile. “But most of my events, I didn’t really have it. Those [the events he did have it] are the ones I won by a lot. But most of them were just hanging in there, not making a double, making a key par save. That was most of the events that I won.”
So which tournament did Tiger feel like he had all systems firing at once? While Tiger admits he putted “really well” at the 1997 Masters and 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, he remembers the 2000 British Open at St. Andrews as “the best I ever hit it.”
“I felt like I had the ball on a string,” Woods says. “I could do anything that I wanted to.”
You don’t have to take his word for it though. The proof was in the pudding that week, as Woods shot 67-66-67-69 to win by eight strokes. His final score of -19 stood as the lowest score in major history for 15 years until Jason Day bested it by a stroke at 2015 PGA Championship. Most importantly, Woods’ triumphant 2000 Open Championship made him youngest golfer to ever complete a career Grand Slam and served as the second leg of his infamous “Tiger Slam,” in which Woods won four consecutive majors, holding all titles simultaneously.
We’re sure there were other weeks where Woods “had it”—the guy loves an undersell almost as much as he loves winning—but who are we to quibble? If the Big Cat says it is so, then it is. End of story.
