‘It’s not a fair fight’: Looking back at Tiger’s historic 2000 U.S. Open championship

Twenty-five years ago, the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links in California was a celebration of the life of defending champion Payne Stewart, who had died in a plane crash less than eight months earlier.

It was also a farewell to 18-time major champion Jack Nicklaus, who was playing in his 44th and final U.S. Open.

It also turned into the coronation of Tiger Woods, who produced one of the greatest performances in men’s golf history over four days.

Woods arrived at Pebble Beach Golf Links three weeks after he had captured his 19th PGA Tour victory — and fourth of the season — with a five-stroke victory at the Memorial Tournament, becoming the first back-to-back winner of the event that Nicklaus hosted.

In fact, Woods had won 11 of his past 20 PGA Tour events: defeating Ernie Els in a playoff in the season-opening Mercedes Championship in Hawaii; coming from seven strokes behind in the final seven holes to beat Matt Gogel by two strokes in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am on Feb. 9; and then running away from the field by four at Arnold Palmer’s tournament, the Bay Hill Invitational, on March 19.

At only 24, Woods had become the first golfer to top $15 million in career on-course earnings. He had won the 1997 Masters, by a record 12 strokes, and the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah Country Club to get halfway to the career Grand Slam.

Woods was an overwhelming favorite to win again in the U.S. Open, after he had tied for third, two strokes behind Stewart, at Pinehurst No. 2 the previous year.

“If the conditions are dry and windy, then it’s a matter of patience,” Nicklaus said before the tournament. “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.”

Nicklaus had set the U.S. Open 72-hole scoring record of 272 in 1980 at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, New Jersey. Lee Janzen tied the mark at the same course in 1993.

The U.S. Open scoring record wouldn’t stand a chance if Woods maintained his torrid pace.

“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,” Stewart Cink said. “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, assessed Woods’ chances of winning more succinctly, saying, “Tiger would be favored anywhere. Put him in a car park and he’d be favored.”

‘Never seen anything like it’

Once Woods arrived at Pebble Beach Golf Links to begin his preparations on Sunday, it didn’t take his caddie, Steve Williams, long to figure out that he was once again the man to beat on the Monterey Peninsula.

Three weeks earlier, Woods had competed in the Deutsche Bank Open in Hamburg, Germany. He had reportedly been paid $1 million to try to defend his European Tour title. In the final round, Woods’ second shot on No. 11 landed in the water, resulting in a double bogey. He tied for third, four strokes behind winner Lee Westwood. It was only the second time in Woods’ career to that point that he failed to win after having the 54-hole lead.

After watching Woods hit balls on the range Monday morning, Williams and Woods’ swing coach, Butch Harmon, asked him to pare down his practice routine before the tournament started.

“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 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, one of Harmon’s closest friends, had watched Woods’ swing from the early days of their partnership.

“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 good friend Mark O’Meara. On the 16th tee box Tuesday, NBC lead golf announcer Johnny Miller, the 1973 U.S. Open champion, joined the group.

“Johnny wasn’t convinced that Tiger was going to be the next best thing,” Williams said. “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.'”

The wind was light and the sun was shining when Woods teed off in the first round Thursday morning with Jim Furyk and Sweden’s Jesper Parnevik. Pebble Beach’s diabolic greens were soft and receptive for a change.

Woods put on a clinic, carding a bogey-free 6-under 65 to take a one-stroke lead over Miguel Angel Jiménez. It was the lowest round ever in a U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

After spending a couple of hours on the club’s practice putting green the night before because he didn’t like the way his ball was rolling on the bumpy poa annua greens, Woods one-putted 12 times and needed only 24 putts in the first 18 holes.

When Woods grabbed a share of the lead with a birdie on the 14th, Miller dropped a bombshell on NBC’s 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 teeing off in the morning had a sizable advantage before a soupy, dense fog rolled in during the afternoon. Seventy-five players were still on the course when play was suspended.

“He put up a very good score,” Sergio Garcia said after the round. “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’

Because so many golfers had to finish their opening rounds Friday morning, Woods had to wait until 4:40 p.m. PT to tee off in the second round.

By the time he was getting ready to tee off on No. 1, Nicklaus was wiping away tears as he walked up the 18th fairway for the final time. He tipped his visor to the crowd, which gave the Golden Bear a standing ovation after he knocked his second shot on the par-5 hole onto the green with a 3-wood. He three-putted for par.

In his final U.S. Open, Nicklaus posted an 11-over 82. He missed the cut with a 36-hole total of 13-over 155.

“I think the U.S. Open to me is a complete examination of a golfer,” Nicklaus said after the round. “The competition, what it does to you inside, how hard it is to work at it. I enjoy that. I enjoy the punishment.”

No one had as complete a game as Woods at that moment. After picking up his first bogey of the tournament on the fifth hole, Woods pushed his tee shot on the uphill sixth into the right rough. Most players had punched out and left their balls short of the green.

Not Woods.

“I’ve often said the part of Tiger’s game that’s most underrated is his play out of the rough,” Williams said. “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 would have to not only muscle his ball out of the rough but also clear a tree growing on the side of a cliff to pull off the blind shot from about 202 yards.

When Woods asked for a 7-iron, Williams didn’t flinch.

“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 violent hack at his ball, which somehow cleared the cliff, landed in front of the green and bounced and stopped 18 feet from the cup.

NBC on-course reporter Roger Maltbie summed it up best on the broadcast: “It’s not a fair fight.”

Tiger missed an eagle putt and settled for birdie.

“An amazing shot that sort of just set the tone for the rest of the week,” Williams said.

On the cliffside par-3 seventh, Woods hit his tee shot to 5 feet and sank another birdie putt to get to 8 under. Another birdie on No. 11 put him two strokes ahead of the field.

After the fog returned, Woods reached the 12th hole in near darkness. Play was suspended shortly after he teed off, but Woods and his playing partners were allowed to finish the hole.

Someone had mentioned to Woods that no one had made a birdie on the rock-hard green the entire day. He hit a towering 5-iron shot to about 30 feet and snaked in a 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.”

Wood was 3 under through 12 holes in the second round and 9 under in the tournament, giving him a 3-stroke lead over Jiménez.

“We have a long way to go — the second round isn’t even over,” Woods said. “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, hitting balls under Harmon’s watchful eye. It was going to be an abbreviated warmup, so Woods didn’t have time to go to the putting green.

When Woods reached the 13th tee, Williams realized there was 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 still been unhappy with his putting stroke the night before, so he had taken three balls out of his bag and putted on the carpet in his hotel room. He forgot to put them back in the bag.

With the way Woods was striping the ball, Williams didn’t think they’d need more than three over the final six holes of the round. He decided to keep his discovery to himself to avoid putting pressure on Woods.

On the 13th hole, Wood drove his tee shot into the rough, and his mighty lash out of the tall grass scuffed his ball. He tossed the ball to a young fan near the 13th green after making par.

“The kid was just so excited, showing his dad he’s got a ball with Tiger’s name on it,” Williams said. “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 picked up another birdie on the par-5 14th and carded pars on Nos. 15 through 17. He didn’t lose a ball — or give another one away.

However, disaster struck on the 18th tee when Woods pulled his drive to the left and into the rocks along the Pacific Ocean coast.

Tiger didn’t know he was down to one ball. If Woods lost the last one, he couldn’t borrow one from his playing partners, either. Under the Rules of Golf, he had to finish the round with the same type of ball he’d been using or he’d be assessed a two-stroke penalty for using a different one. He was the only golfer in the field using Nike balls.

As Woods reached for his driver again, Williams suggested he might want to use a 2-iron off the tee.

“Tiger said, ‘Get your f******g hand off that driver head cover!'” Williams said in his recent book, “Together We Roared,” which he wrote with golf writer Evin Priest. “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 dry land. He made bogey and posted a 2-under 69. His 36-hole total of 8 under left him six shots ahead of Jiménez and Denmark’s Thomas Bjørn, breaking a U.S. Open record for the largest advantage at the halfway point.

Only four other golfers were under par.

Woods’ dominance was beginning to weigh on some of 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, it was all but over. Woods made one big mistake — a triple-bogey 7 on the par-4 third after his approach found the rough. He finally reached the green on his fifth shot and missed the putt. Woods laughed as he walked to the fifth tee.

“That’s what impressed me most and signified Tiger was in complete control,” Williams said in his book. “When did you ever see Tiger Woods laugh when he made a double- or triple-bogey? Never.”

On a day when the wind was howling and Pebble Beach’s greens finally dried out, Woods managed to post an even-par 71. At 8 under, he was the only golfer under par and was a whopping 10 strokes in front of Els, the largest 54-hole lead in U.S. Open history.

“He’s out there in his own tournament, isn’t he?” Padraig Harrington said at the time.

With the rout on, NBC Sports had to wonder whether golf fans would watch the final round on Father’s Day. It ended up being the opposite, as millions tuned in to see how low Woods would go and how many strokes he’d win by. The final two days ended up being the most-watched U.S. Open rounds since viewership started being tracked in 1975.

Woods carded a bogey-free 67 in the final round, leaving him with a 72-hole total of 12-under 272. He was the only golfer who finished under par, 15 strokes better than Els and Jiménez, who were 3 over.

Woods’ 15-stroke victory was the biggest in major championship history, surpassing Old Tom Morris’ 13-stroke win at the 1862 Open Championship. He was the first player in the 106-year history of the U.S. Open to finish double digits under par.

“It was a complete show with one guy,” NBC golf announcer Dan Hicks said. “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 scoring card after the final round, he turned to Williams and asked him what the commotion was about on the 18th tee in the second round, when only Williams knew that they were down to their last golf ball.

“He could see I was nervous, and he had a nine-shot lead,” Williams said. “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 will also never forget what Woods told him next.

“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 next month, Williams went to St. Andrews in Scotland a week early. On July 23, 2000, Woods defeated Bjørn and Els by eight strokes to capture the Claret Jug, becoming the youngest golfer to complete the career Grand Slam.

He won the final leg of the so-called Tiger Slam the next April by collecting a second green jacket at the 2001 Masters to hold all four major titles simultaneously.

“I think Tiger’s skill level was the greatest in history,” Cink said. “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.”