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Mark Calcavecchia says Tiger Woods once saved him $300,000 at the Tour Championship
Streeter Lecka
Golf fans are well aware of Tiger Woods’ fiercely competitive nature. In fact, Tiger told GOLFTV’s Henni Zuel last week he’d rank himself and Michael Jordan 1A and 1B when it comes to their will to win no matter the circumstance. But that doesn’t mean Woods is incapable of having a soft spot for his opponents.
Mark Calcavecchia went on the PGA Tour’s “Talk of the Tour” podcast last week and told a pretty cool Tiger tale involving the 15-time major champ potentially saving him a lot of money at the 2007 Tour Championship. The two were paired in the final group that Sunday, but like so many other Sundays, Woods had pulled away from the field by the time they reached the 18th hole. As Calcavecchia, a 13-time PGA Tour winner tells it, he blew his birdie putt some eight feet past the final hole and decided to quickly finish up in order to get out of the way for Woods.
That’s when Tiger, who despite being eight shots ahead still knew that Calc was tied with Zach Johnson for second place, intervened with some helpful advice. Have a listen:
Of course, Calc still had to convert the par putt, which he did to secure one of the biggest checks of his career. But he remains thankful for Tiger's encouragement. “I’ll never forget that, that he came up and said that to me at the time,” Calcavecchia told PGA Tour’s John Swantek. “So that was pretty cool.”
Pretty cool, indeed. Although, somewhere, Tiger’s friend Zach Johnson might have a slightly different take.