He was up before sunrise, awakened by the six-stroke lead he’d taken to bed Friday night and the six holes he’d be playing that morning. Always a better golfer than a sleeper, Tiger Woods began his Saturday with three balls and a putter, refining his stroke on the hotel room carpet, as if those few hours of rest might have sabotaged a week that took 20 years to build.
The rug in his suite, of course, was nothing like the greens at Pebble Beach, site of the 2000 U.S. Open.
“During the practice rounds, he couldn’t get comfortable,” recalls Woods’ caddie, Steve Williams. “Fast and bumpy is not a very good combination. It was quite difficult to chip the ball close, so you were going to have a lot of putts in the 10-to-15-foot range. Tiger was on the practice green almost until dark Wednesday night. Mostly short putts, 6 to 10 feet.”
A dense fog had smothered the famed coastal links Thursday afternoon, disrupting the late half of the draw and providing further clearance for Woods, who teed off early and shot 65 under sunny skies. The ensuing suspension of play, however, moved Tiger’s second-round start back to 4:40 p.m. Friday. He got in 12 holes before dark, finishing with a 30-footer for birdie to end the day at 8 under par.
Secretariat had come roaring out of the gate. No one else was even close to close.
“The Sunday before, Tiger played with Adam Scott out at my place (Rio Secco Golf Club in Las Vegas) and set the course record (64), and that was with a penalty stroke in a 25-mph wind,” says Butch Harmon, who was Woods’ instructor at the time. “I mean, it was really blowing. We all ran straight to the casino and bet on him to win at Pebble.”
Saturday’s restart began at 7:30 with Woods, Jim Furyk and Jesper Parnevik picking up their rounds on the par-4 13th. Williams got to Woods’ room earlier than usual because, as he says, “You know Pebble — you warm up in one spot and go putt in another, then you take a shuttle to your starting hole, and everything is rather spread out.” Since Woods had been awake for a while and putting for just as long, he saw no need to visit the practice green.
So off they went: history to chase, a field to demolish — and a serious crisis to avoid. On the 13th tee, Williams realized that three of the six balls previously in Tiger’s bag had been left on the floor in Woods’ room. No big deal, at least until Woods staked his approach at the 15th, rolled in another 10-footer for birdie, then flipped the ball to a kid as he walked off the green.
Williams was getting nervous. “All I could say to myself was, ‘How am I going to get that ball back?’ We play 16 and 17, no problem, and I wanted him to hit an iron off 18, anyway. He’s got a seven-stroke lead, but he says, ‘Give me that (bleeping) driver’ and hits it left. Now we’re down to one ball and there’s water in play on the second shot.”
As his drive sailed toward the Pacific Ocean, Woods unleashed a couple of choice obscenities for those watching at home on NBC. What he didn’t know is that he was about to hit his last Nike One. Williams never mentioned it. Again, the caddie suggested an iron. Again, Woods chose the driver and launched a towering fade to the right half of the fairway. Despite bogeys on both back-nine par 5s, he was in with a 69, his lead still six.
Says Parnevik: “I remember talking with Lance (Ten Broeck, his caddie) afterward and we couldn’t think of a single putt (Woods) missed inside 20 feet. It was crazy, what he was doing.
One after the other. I mean, on those greens? Even in June, it’s still Pebble.”
Ten years later, count Furyk among the flabbergasted. Not because he spent 36 holes watching Woods put on a clinic — “he made a pile of putts but he also made some mistakes, which makes it more phenomenal,” says Furyk, who had no idea Woods was down to his last ball that Saturday morning. “Is that true?” he asks. “Come on! That’s an amazing story.”
Furyk himself had hit a 4-wood off the 18th tee to solidify his chances of making the cut. The guy 13 strokes ahead of him, meanwhile, had no such worries. Woods didn’t find out about the shortage of balls until after the tournament, and only then it was because he asked Williams why he seemed so anxious at the end of the second round. The two men still laugh about it, but if Woods had run out of ammo, it’s doubtful he would have found anything funny about his options as designated by the USGA’s one-ball rule.
He could have sent Williams to the pro shop to buy a sleeve, but because Woods always has played a ball designed specifically for him — not sold to the public — there would have been a penalty involved. Williams could have gone back to Woods’ room and fetched the missing Nikes, which might have led to a penalty for delay of play, or he could have simply borrowed a Top-Flite from Furyk or a Titleist from Parnevik at the cost of two shots per hole (with a maximum four-shot penalty).
You know what’s really amazing?
Woods could have played all six holes that morning with someone else’s ball, absorbed the punishment and still won by 11.
