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Tiger Woods "slump"
in 2001
It would have been considered one of the greatest performances in PGA Tour
history if it had been any other year than 2001 - and any other player than Tiger
Woods.
He won the Masters for the second time by beating the second- and third-ranked
players in the world on the back nine at Augusta National, making him the only
player in history to hold the titles of all four professional majors at the same
time.
Woods also won The Players Championship against the toughest field in golf.
For good measure, throw in a World Golf Championship that he won at Firestone
with the longest playoff on tour in 10 years, seven holes.
He won tournaments with hosts named Arnie and Jack, wrapped up the money title
with a month left in the season and claimed the Vardon Trophy for the third straight
year.
What did that get him?
A lot of questions about what was wrong with his game.
"If I can do that for the rest of my career, you can write 'slump' all
you want," Woods said. "I think I'm going to have a pretty good one."
What everyone wanted was an encore, which was like asking Leonardo da Vinci
to tweak the smile on Mona Lisa.
The question at the start of the season was whether Y2K - when Woods won nine
times, including three straight majors - was the exception or the norm.
Even now, no one is sure.
"Maybe that was his big year, his Byron Nelson year," Davis Love
III said. "We're going to have to get used to the fact that his 2000 season
was one of the great all-time feats in sports and just be amazed at his 2001.
Maybe he does not ever do better than that.
"But whether it's 2001, 2000 or 1999, we all want what he's got. We still
want to be where he is. He still had the year that we all wanted to have."
It was a year no one will forget, not only because of what was won - the Tiger
Slam - but what was not - a Ryder Cup that was postponed.
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks caused the PGA Tour to cancel tournaments for
the first time in 52 years. By the end of the week, officials decided to postpone
the Ryder Cup in England until next September.
"I got the feeling it wasn't going to be much of an event," Mark
Calcavecchia said. "You need guys excited about being there, and we weren't
going to be. You need guys with good attitudes, and we would have been saying,
'What are we doing here? This is stupid.'"
On the course, Woods shared the wealth.
Calcavecchia had a 256 at the Phoenix Open to break a 72-hole scoring record
that had stood for 46 years. The youth movement shifted to 17-year-old Ty Tryon,
a high school junior who skipped classes to become the youngest player to earn
his PGA Tour card.
Four players won the four majors, none named Phil Mickelson.
David Duval won the British Open for his first major. David Toms won the PGA
Championship with a gutsy decision, laying up on the par-4 18th and beating Mickelson
by getting up-and-down for par.
Retief Goosen tried to throw away the U.S. Open with a three-putt from 12 feet
on the 72nd hole, but won the next day in a playoff and was the European tour's
top player.
Mickelson didn't win that coveted major, but had 10 finishes in the top three.
By the end of the year, the gap had closed on Woods. The question was whether
everyone got better or he came back to the field.
"When those guys play good, the gap is not very big," Thomas Bjorn
said. "But it's still there, because Tiger is capable of more things than
they are. And when Tiger is on his game, he is better than everyone else.
"And I don't think we've seen the best of him yet."
Golf actually did have a season like the one in 2000, only it belonged to Annika
Sorenstam.
The straight-hitting Swede won eight times on the LPGA Tour, the most in 22
years. She won four straight tournaments, including a major championship, and
became the first woman to shoot 59 - even though she missed a 10-foot birdie on
the last hole.
In the process, she set a record for the lowest scoring average and became
the LPGA's first $2 million woman.
Karrie Webb, the 26-year-old Aussie, became the youngest woman to win the career
Grand Slam, and she did so in heartbreaking fashion. She nearly withdrew on the
eve of the final round at the LPGA Championship when she learned her grandfather
was dying in Australia. Webb won the slam, raced home to Australia but arrived
too late to say goodbye.
Also in 2001, the golf world bid farewell to Ely Callaway, who reshaped the
equipment industry with his Big Bertha drivers.
The PGA Tour scored big in the boardroom, negotiating another four-year TV
deal worth close to $1 billion. It lost big in the courtroom, where the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in favor of Casey Martin and his cart.
Still, the entire season was geared toward the first weekend in April and the
great debate over what constituted a Grand Slam.
All four majors, or four majors in the same year?
The Masters became so compelling that even Jack Nicklaus watched on television,
something he rarely does. He saw history being made when Woods held off Duval
and Mickelson to win his second green jacket.
"Is it a Grand Slam? I don't think it makes a difference," Nicklaus
said. "What it's called is irrelevant. What he's done is what matters most,
and what he's done is unbelievable. I call it the most remarkable feat I have
ever seen or heard of in golf."
It that respect, it was a great year, indeed.
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