It may be the greatest shot ever hit in the history of Major championships. If not, it’s least the best shot ever hit at the Masters.
With complete respect to Gene Sarazen’s albatross on the 15th hole in 1935, the second ever Masters Tournament was not the event it had evolved into by 2005.
Tiger Woods’ chip-in for birdie on the par-3 16th during the final round of the 2005 Masters instantly went viral all over the sporting world.
Woods held a one-shot lead over Chris DiMarco but pulled his tee shot long and left, and his ball sat on the fairway behind the green and up against the collar of the rough. Woods chipped a lob wedge up the bank and let his ball feed back down the slope. It paused on the edge of the cup to give Nike the most organic, impactful few seconds of advertising in history and then dropped into the cup.
“Oh wow, in your life have you seen anything like that,” Verne Lundquist famously said on commentary.
Woods bogeyed the next two holes but few remember that, given he beat DiMarco in a playoff and validated his incredible chip-in.
But Woods’ former caddie, Steve Williams, revealed something about the shot you probably didn’t know in a new podcast series, Chasing Majors. The famous New Zealand caddie went into detail about that iconic moment in episode 8.
Neither Woods, nor Williams, had ever seen that part of Augusta National. He played the shot completely raw. Williams elaborates at the 41min36s mark:
“When he was hitting off the tee I was thinking oh no he’s hit that in the way,” Williams told Chasing Majors.
“It’s amazing the emotions (that I experienced in the space of a couple of seconds) … the ball was only in the air for a second and I thought, Oh, no! Oh, God, Tiger! That’s in the bunker. Then I’m thinking it’s in the water. Then I thought, That’s over the green! In the space of a few seconds.”
Williams had first caddied at Augusta for Greg Norman in 1987. Williams was renowned for his thorough preparation and would scour every part of a course where he thought his player could possibly hit the ball.
But he’d never thought it was likely Woods would hit it long and left at the par-3 16th.
And just for good measure, let’s watch that special moment again:
