Something was different heading into the 2002 Masters.
No, not with Tiger Woods — he was still the dominant force in the game. He’d won 25 times worldwide since the start of 1999, including five majors, and had four top-10s in seven starts in 2002 when he arrived in Augusta, Georgia.
That included another victory in Arnold Palmer’s annual invitational at Bay Hill.
Instead, the altered nature of the tournament had everything to do with the iconic course. After Woods began turning Augusta National’s hallowed grounds into a pitch-and-putt in 1997 – hitting wedge to the par-5 15th, sand wedges to the longer par-4s, etc. – the green jackets called renowned architect Tom Fazio with one goal: put some teeth back into the course.
Fazio delivered, which meant new trees were planted, extra tee boxes ingrained and 285 extra yards of length added to nine holes, stretching the course to 7,270 yards. The modifications, naturally, became known as Tiger-proofing.
“This golf course has certainly changed on your approach mentally,” Woods said. “I think it’s more of a mental test now than it was when I first won here, because of the lengthening.”
2002 Masters: Final leaderboard
Well, 100 years after Bobby Jones was born, and in Arnold Palmer’s last Masters, the Tiger-proofing was no match for Tiger. With rounds of 70-69-66-71, Woods finished at 12-under 276 and three shots clear of Retief Goosen when the manual white scoreboards came to a standstill.
But it was far from easy as he joined Jack Nicklaus (1965-66) and Nick Faldo (1989-90) as the only players to win back-to-back green jackets.
“I always felt that I had the game that was good enough to win here at this tournament. But you need to have — and I keep saying it — you’ve got to have some good breaks,” Woods said. “I played well this week, made some good putts when I really needed them, but I had some good breaks as well. I was able to somehow finagle a way to get up-and-down and save a lot of pars this week.”
Woods signed for a 70 after the first round, then played 26 holes on Saturday to finish off his second round and conclude his third round due to a rain delay. He woke at 4:30 a.m. that Saturday, trailing Vijay Singh by six shots, but by nightfall he held co-ownership of the lead at 11 under with Goosen. His third-round 66 was the lowest of the day.
As Masters Sunday took flight, six of the top 7 players in the world were within four shots of the lead – Goosen tied with Woods, Singh two back, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Ernie Els four back.
Woods birdied two and three and from there no one got within two shots of him the rest of the way. While Els and Mickelson each birdied the first two holes, their offensive on Woods stalled, as did all the others. Woods let them insert their own daggers and while he made three bogeys, he kept his distance with four birdies.
The extra length did him no harm – he hit 69 percent of his fairways in regulation, 75 percent of his greens. He made 19 birdies, averaged 295 off the tee.
It was his third green jacket, his seventh major championship. And he was just 26. No one had ever gotten to seven major victories at such a young age.
“It’s pretty neat to be able to have my name mentioned with some of the golfing greats, especially at this tournament,” Woods said. “This tournament is very historic and very special to all the players. This is a tournament we really want to win, and to be able to put my name on that trophy three times, it’s really cool.
“It would be nice to win as many majors as Jack did. That would be great. But if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. I think the thing I keep saying to myself every year is I want to become a better player at the end of the year than I was at the beginning. If I can keep doing that year after year, I’ll have a pretty good career.”
This is the eighth story in a series looking at each of Tiger Woods’ appearances at the Masters. Catch up on the series here.
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