Twenty-five years ago, the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links in California was a significant event for multiple reasons. It served as a tribute to the life of reigning champion Payne Stewart, who had tragically passed away in a plane crash less than eight months prior. It also marked the final U.S. Open appearance for 18-time major winner Jack Nicklaus.
However, the tournament is most remembered as the stage for Tiger Woods` dominant performance, widely regarded as one of the greatest in men`s golf history over four days.
Woods arrived at Pebble Beach just three weeks after securing his 19th PGA Tour victory, his fourth win of the season, at the Memorial Tournament. There, he made history as the first player to win the event hosted by Nicklaus consecutively.
His recent form was nothing short of spectacular, having won 11 of his last 20 PGA Tour starts. This included a playoff win against Ernie Els at the season-opening Mercedes Championship, a come-from-behind victory from seven strokes down over Matt Gogel at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and a dominant four-stroke win at Arnold Palmer`s Bay Hill Invitational.
At the young age of 24, Woods had already become the first golfer to surpass $15 million in career on-course earnings. He had claimed the 1997 Masters with a record 12-stroke margin and the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah Country Club, putting him halfway towards achieving the career Grand Slam.
Coming off a tied-for-third finish, just two strokes behind Stewart, at Pinehurst No. 2 the previous year, Woods was the overwhelming favorite to win at the U.S. Open.
Reflecting before the tournament, Jack Nicklaus commented, “If the conditions are dry and windy, then it`s a matter of patience. But if they`re throwing darts, then Tiger will shoot a tremendously low score, no matter what the conditions are. And he`ll probably break the Open record.”
The existing U.S. Open 72-hole scoring record was 272, set by Nicklaus in 1980 and tied by Lee Janzen in 1993.
Given Woods` incredible pace, that record seemed unlikely to survive.
Stewart Cink observed, “He had already arrived in a big way in one tournament [at the 1997 Masters], but that was the start of Tiger winning tournaments by a lot of shots. Not just winning but like oh-my-gosh winning, more than five or six shots. That`s just unheard of considering how close all of us are together as far as skill.”
Australia`s Stuart Appleby, a three-time PGA Tour winner at the time, offered a more concise assessment: “Tiger would be favored anywhere. Put him in a car park and he`d be favored.”
`Never seen anything like it`
From the moment Woods arrived at Pebble Beach on Sunday to prepare, his caddie, Steve Williams, sensed that Woods was once again the player to beat on the Monterey Peninsula.
Three weeks prior, Woods had played in the Deutsche Bank Open in Hamburg, Germany, reportedly receiving $1 million to defend his European Tour title. In the final round, a double bogey after hitting into the water on the 11th hole contributed to him tying for third, four strokes behind winner Lee Westwood. This was only the second time in his career up to that point that he failed to win after holding a 54-hole lead.
After watching Woods practice on the range Monday morning, Williams and Woods` swing coach, Butch Harmon, advised him to scale back his practice routine before the tournament began.
“We didn`t want Tiger to overdo it before the tournament started because both of us had never seen him strike the ball with such precision and just the way he was shaping the shots,” Williams later told ESPN. “We didn`t want Tiger to play too much before the tournament because he was so geared and ready to play well.”
Sam Reeves, a close friend of Harmon`s who had seen Woods` swing develop over their partnership, was equally impressed.
“I`ve never seen anything like it,” Reeves told Williams. “I`ve never seen him hit the ball that well.”
Woods played two practice rounds with his friend Mark O`Meara. On the 16th tee box on Tuesday, NBC`s lead golf announcer, Johnny Miller, joined the group. Miller, the 1973 U.S. Open champion, wasn`t entirely convinced at that point that Woods was destined for ultimate greatness.
“And Mark O`Meara basically told him, `Hey, just watch this kid play for a few holes. This guy`s going to be the best player you`ve ever seen,`” Williams recalled.
Conditions were favorable for scoring in the first round on Thursday morning, with light wind and sunshine, and Pebble Beach`s notoriously difficult greens were unusually soft. Woods, playing with Jim Furyk and Jesper Parnevik, capitalized, carding a bogey-free 6-under 65. This gave him a one-stroke lead over Miguel Angel Jiménez and stood as the lowest round ever recorded in a U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
After dedicating hours to practicing on the bumpy poa annua greens the night before, Woods` putting was superb, requiring only 24 putts for the round and one-putting 12 times.
When Woods birdied the 14th hole to take a share of the lead, Johnny Miller made a bold prediction on the NBC broadcast.
“I think it`s going to be very tight with the rest of the field, but I really do believe, I`ve got this hunch, that Tiger`s going to break every U.S. Open record this week and maybe win by a big margin,” Miller said. “… I just had the feeling that if he could get off to a great start, which he has done, it could be a week that he just says, `See ya, guys.`”
Golfers with morning tee times benefited significantly before a thick fog rolled in during the afternoon, leading to a suspension of play with 75 players still on the course.
Sergio Garcia, commenting after his round, acknowledged Woods` score but added, “But if you shoot 1 or 2 under, he could struggle very easily on this course. You can go 2 or 3 over just like that. The tournament`s not over. It just started.”
`It`s just not a fair fight`
Due to the delays from golfers finishing their opening rounds on Friday morning, Woods didn`t tee off for his second round until late afternoon.
As Woods was preparing to start, Jack Nicklaus was concluding his final U.S. Open round. He walked up the 18th fairway for the last time, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd after hitting his second shot onto the green. He finished with a par after a three-putt. Nicklaus posted an 82 for the round and missed the cut with a total of 155.
Nicklaus reflected on the nature of the event, saying, “I think the U.S. Open to me is a complete examination of a golfer. The competition, what it does to you inside, how hard it is to work at it. I enjoy that. I enjoy the punishment.”
At that moment, no one possessed a game as complete as Tiger Woods`. After his first bogey of the tournament on the fifth hole, Woods pushed his tee shot into the right rough on the uphill sixth. While most players would simply punch out, Woods opted for a more aggressive play.
“I`ve often said the part of Tiger`s game that`s most underrated is his play out of the rough,” Steve Williams commented. “He is a phenomenal player of moving the ball out of the rough and getting it very, very close to pin high. He`s just got a freakish ability, and he`s very strong.”
Woods faced a shot from about 202 yards that required muscling the ball out of deep rough and clearing a tree growing on the side of a cliff – a blind shot.
When Woods asked for a 7-iron, Williams didn`t hesitate.
“After caddying for Tiger for a little while, you sometimes prefer him to play it safe,” Williams said. “But that was one where I knew straightaway he could get the club on it. Whether he could get it to the green, I didn`t know. I certainly believed he could get it up over the hill.”
Woods took a powerful swing, and the ball miraculously cleared the cliff, landed near the green, and bounced to a stop 18 feet from the hole.
NBC on-course reporter Roger Maltbie perfectly captured the moment on air: “It`s not a fair fight.”
Woods missed the eagle putt but secured a birdie.
“An amazing shot that sort of just set the tone for the rest of the week,” Williams noted.
On the cliffside par-3 seventh, Woods hit his tee shot to just 5 feet and sank another birdie putt, moving to 8 under and two strokes ahead of the field.
As the fog returned, Woods reached the 12th hole in near darkness. Play was suspended shortly after he teed off, but the group was allowed to finish the hole.
Someone mentioned to Woods that no one had managed a birdie on the difficult, rock-hard green all day. Woods responded by hitting a high 5-iron shot to about 30 feet and draining a winding birdie putt he could barely see.
“Tiger loves making a statement,” Williams said. “Everybody else wanted to mark the ball and come back the next day. But, you know, Tiger likes to leave with an exclamation mark.”
Woods finished his interrupted second round at 3 under through 12 holes, putting him at 9 under overall and holding a 3-stroke lead over Miguel Angel Jiménez.
“We have a long way to go — the second round isn`t even over,” Woods stated. “This is a more demanding course than Augusta was then. I need to continue to play well in the morning.”
The missing golf balls
Woods was back on the driving range at 5:07 a.m. PT Saturday morning, warming up under the supervision of Butch Harmon. It was a brief session, and he didn`t have time to visit the putting green.
When they arrived at the 13th tee, Steve Williams discovered a problem.
“When we got to the tee and I put my hand in the bag, there were only three balls,” Williams said. “I didn`t know why; there should have been half a dozen.”
Woods had been unhappy with his putting stroke the previous night and had taken three balls out of his bag to practice on the carpet in his hotel room, forgetting to put them back.
Given how well Woods was hitting the ball, Williams believed three balls would be sufficient for the remaining six holes. He chose not to inform Woods to avoid adding pressure.
On the 13th hole, Woods drove into the rough, and his powerful shot out of the tall grass scuffed the ball. After making par, he tossed the scuffed ball to a young fan near the green.
“The kid was just so excited, showing his dad he`s got a ball with Tiger`s name on it,” Williams recalled. “And I`m thinking, `Geez, maybe I should just get that ball back, just in case, and have the kid come and meet me at the 18th green.`”
“But, I mean, you can`t do that in front of all the people around Tiger. He`ll go, `What in the hell is going on here?`”
Woods birdied the par-5 14th and made pars on holes 15 through 17, not losing or giving away another ball.
However, trouble arose on the 18th tee when Woods pulled his drive left into the rocks along the Pacific Ocean coast.
Tiger was unaware he was down to his last ball. If he lost it, he couldn`t borrow one from his playing partners, as rules require finishing the round with the same type of ball, and he was the only player using Nike balls.
As Woods reached for his driver again, Williams suggested using a 2-iron off the tee instead.
“Tiger said, `Get your f******g hand off that driver head cover!`” Williams wrote in his book, “Together We Roared.” “I didn`t want to tell him it`s our last golf ball because he probably would have told me to get my ass onto 17-Mile Drive and onto a Greyhound bus out of there.”
Fortunately for Williams, Woods` second tee shot was straight and found the fairway. He made bogey to finish the round with a 2-under 69. His 36-hole total of 8 under gave him a six-stroke lead over Jiménez and Thomas Bjørn, setting a U.S. Open record for the largest lead at the halfway point.
Remarkably, only four other golfers were under par after two rounds.
Woods` sheer dominance was beginning to affect his competitors.
“I think you guys have to realize that there are 156 guys in this tournament,” Jiménez told reporters. “The press thinks there`s just one guy.”
`He had more`
Heading into the third round, the outcome felt almost predetermined. Woods made one notable error, a triple-bogey 7 on the par-4 third hole after his approach shot found the rough, leading to him reaching the green in five and missing the putt. Woods, however, showed remarkable composure, laughing as he walked to the fifth tee.
“That`s what impressed me most and signified Tiger was in complete control,” Williams wrote. “When did you ever see Tiger Woods laugh when he made a double- or triple-bogey? Never.”
On a day marked by strong winds and firming Pebble Beach greens, Woods managed to shoot an even-par 71. At 8 under, he remained the sole player under par and held a massive 10-stroke lead over Ernie Els, establishing the largest 54-hole lead in U.S. Open history.
Padraig Harrington commented at the time, “He`s out there in his own tournament, isn`t he?”
With the tournament effectively decided, NBC Sports wondered if viewers would tune in for the final round on Father`s Day. The opposite occurred; millions watched to see just how low Woods would score and by how many strokes he would win. The final two days became the most-watched U.S. Open rounds since viewership tracking began in 1975.
Woods finished with a bogey-free 67 in the final round, bringing his 72-hole total to 12-under 272. He was the only player to finish under par, ending up an astounding 15 strokes ahead of Ernie Els and Miguel Angel Jiménez, who finished tied for second at 3 over par.
Woods` 15-stroke victory set a record for the largest margin of victory in major championship history, surpassing Old Tom Morris` 13-stroke win at the 1862 Open Championship. He was also the first player in the 106-year history of the U.S. Open to finish the tournament double digits under par.
NBC golf announcer Dan Hicks described the performance: “It was a complete show with one guy. This was history, and I think people picked up on the fact that how can one single guy be that dominant? How can one guy take it to 12 under par and the next guy be plus-3? We`re never going to see anything like that.”
“I think it was a fascination with a guy at perfection in a game which no one really comes close to. So it`s the absolute Sistine Chapel of major championship performances, and I really believe it will never be equaled.”
As Woods signed his score card after the final round, he turned to Williams and inquired about the commotion on the 18th tee during the second round, when only Williams knew they were down to the last golf ball.
“He could see I was nervous, and he had a nine-shot lead,” Williams recalled. “What would you be nervous about? He could see something was wrong, but I never mentioned it until I told him. We laughed forever about that.”
Williams also remembered Woods` confident declaration immediately following the win:
“Steve, I`m going to play even better at the British Open at St. Andrews,” Woods said. “I want you to get your ass over there, and I want you to know every blade of grass on that course.”
The following month, Williams traveled to St. Andrews a week early. On July 23, 2000, Woods defeated Thomas Bjørn and Ernie Els by eight strokes to capture the Claret Jug, becoming the youngest golfer to complete the career Grand Slam.
He completed the “Tiger Slam” the following April by winning his second green jacket at the 2001 Masters, holding all four major championships simultaneously.
Stewart Cink summarized Woods` impact: “I think Tiger`s skill level was the greatest in history. The majors identified that to an even greater extent because they had the heavy rough, and his power overcame the heavy rough. They had a lot of length; his power overcame that. They required patience, and he had the best mental game and fortitude the game has ever seen.”
“They just required more of everything — and he had more.”
