Sweeping Beauty

The fairy tale comes true--Tiger Woods wins the Masters to complete the most stunning stretch of major championship domination in the game's history

Woods was wide left on his first tee shot Sunday, but he offset the ensuing bogey a hole later.

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By John Hawkins

Photo By Dom Furore

April 13, 2001

Call it what you want. A Grand Slam, an Impregnable Quadrilateral, The Monopoly to Which Others Contributed so Sloppily, or better yet, simply refer to it as the greatest stretch of dominance in golf history. Let the glory echo the accomplishment, not the corny labels attached to it, for if there's one thing we should remember about the 65th Masters, it's that action speaks louder than words.

Tiger Woods wins again. Details at 11.

This time, though, it really was different. There was the trickle of a teardrop on the 18th green and a river of fresh perspective afterward, as if Woods would remove his competitive armor only so another green jacket could smother his shoulders. Yes, the finality of it all hit him like an 18-wheeler. No, he never thought it possible to win four consecutive major championships. Yes, this was more impressive than those six straight USGA titles. And, no, in the Grand scheme of things, it isn't so much a Slam as it is a damn good fit.

"I got it a little big in '97," Woods said of the first sportcoat he received at Augusta National, "because a lot of guys told me they get larger as they get older."

As does the legend. Woods' sixth career major triumph will forever be linked to the 1930 achievement of the one and only Bobby Jones, but as is often the case, such historical comparisons suffer from blurred vision and loose lips. "Jack and Arnie bitching about him not getting a double dip? Kiss off," growled Rocco Mediate. "He's won four in a row. Just because they couldn't do it doesn't mean he can't. They have to leave this kid alone."

He is alone, has been for some time, occupying a stratosphere all his own. "What this is," said swing coach Butch Harmon, "is something no one who's walked this planet has ever done before."

From the apples and oranges blossomed a Georgia peach of a golf tournament, a contest deliciously similar to the 1975 Masters, when Nicklaus outlasted two of his toughest contemporaries, Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller. Responding to his competitive Jones, Woods needed every last drop in the tank to pull away from David Duval and Phil Mickelson, both of whom saw their best chance to win a first major championship vanish in a pile of misplaced opportunity.

Tiger Woods wins again. Details at 11, 13, 15, 16, 17 and 18. "The toughest thing about it is, I've played well enough to be the four-time defending champion," Duval lamented, his imagination drifting only slightly. "I've been in this position before a few times. I got beat by Mark [O'Meara in 1998] and a couple of other times I may very well have beaten myself, but today I didn't do that. It's not enjoyable, sitting here under these circumstances."

It stands to reason that Woods won his second Masters because Duval missed a five-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole. No stroke had greater impact on the outcome, but to summarize last Sunday's final round so succinctly would be like saying the Civil War lasted three days.

"When I look back on this week, if I'm going to win with Tiger in the field, I can't continue to make the mistakes I've been making," said Mickelson, who finished third, three strokes back. "I've got to eliminate those somehow, from double bogeys on 12 and 14 earlier in the week to four bogeys today that weren't really tough pars. Mentally, I'm not there for all 72 shots. I'm slacking off on two or three, not thinking through each shot, and it's costing me some vital strokes."

Having capitalized on Saturday's birdie-birdie finish to earn the spot alongside Woods in Sunday's final pairing, Mickelson called the next 24 hours the most important of his career—then let the biggest tournament of his life slip away in the most unexpected fashion. On both front-nine par 3s, he failed to execute relatively simple up and downs, digging a hole from which he would never fully recover. The first bogey occurred when he stubbed a chip from the swale behind the fourth green, the second when he gassed a two-footer at the sixth. Typically, Mickelson atoned for the mistakes with birdies, first at No. 5, then at 7 and 8, but this wasn't a day when running in place would do him any good.