Re-writing the History Books

Twenty-five years on from Tiger Woods’ record breaking first Masters win, Bill Elliott reflects on how he has transformed the game of golf

- By Bill Elliott. Photographs by Getty Images

It was late in the evening of Sunday April 13, 1997 when Earl and Kutilda Woods noticed their son was missing from the merry action to celebrate his Masters victory. Upstairs in their Augusta rental that week, they opened the door to his bedroom. And there he was, sprawled on the bed, fast asleep, still wearing his red shirt and black pants, his arms cuddling the Green Jacket Nick Faldo had handed him a few hours earlier as though it was his favourite teddy bear and he was just a big kid.

At 21 years and 104 days, Tiger Woods was, of course, no longer a kid, but he was the youngest ever winner at Augusta. As his parents looked at him, they must have realised this was the end of a remarkable beginning, that other great stuff was yet to come. Of course, what they couldn’t know was that the worst of times was out there, too.

What, I believe, is indisputable is that Woods’ first Major win is clearly one of the keystone moments in golf and worthy of serious mention set against other extraordinary debuts, like, for example, Pele’s World Cup Final goals as a teenager for Brazil against Sweden in 1958, Shane Warne’s baffling first ball to England’s acknowledged finest player of spin, Mike Gatting, in 1993 or a youthful Cassius Clay surprisingly dismantling Sonny Liston in Miami to become world champ in 1964.