The Open legends: Tiger Woods
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Tiger Woods is a three-time Open champion and one of the greatest players ever to grace Britain’s links courses.
Today’s Golfer’s 2022 Major coverage is brought to you in association with TaylorMade.
Three of Tiger Woods’ 16 Major victories have occurred in Open Championships, and twice – in 2000 and 2005 – at the Home of Golf. More impressively still, those victories at St Andrews sealed career Grand Slams numbers one and two.
Few players appreciate the history of links golf or understand its challenges quite like Tiger; from the subtle bounces to the horizontal rain, it’s golf in its purest form and a battle of brains over brute force. Ahead of his 22nd Open appearance, he explains why the lure of The Open remains as strong as ever.
Links golf is my favourite type of golf because it’s creative and you have to use your mind. We’re not going to get the most perfect bounces. A certain shot that’s hit where you think it’s a wonderful shot down the middle of the fairway could bounce some weird way. That’s just part of it. That’s the fun challenge of it.
A lot of times the yardages are just thrown out the door. You have to create a shot, see a shot and hit it and play so much by feel, we don’t get a chance to do that in the States. Back home, if you’ve got 164, you have to fly it 164. Here, you can fly it 120 if you wanted to and scoot it on back there. You have so many different options.
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I had a two-week introduction to links golf. Carnoustie, the hardest links course there is, and then the Old Course at St Andrews, back-to-back. You can’t get any better than that. We played a practice round at St Andrews where the wind turned on the tide and it was against us all day. I remember seeing pot bunkers and thinking, ‘What are they there for, they’re not remotely in play?’ Then the next day the wind changed and all those bunkers suddenly were in play. That’s the genius of the place.
We generally play an airborne game everywhere around the world where we have to hit the ball straight up in the air and make it stop. Here it’s different. Here and the Aussie Sandbelt courses are probably the only places where we can play true links-type golf where we bounce the ball up, shape shots and really be creative. To be able to dink a 5-iron from 150 yards and bump it along the ground or hit a 4-iron 260 yards that bounces over the green is pretty neat. I just love it.
The fans over here that come out to The Open Championship are the most knowledgeable fans. This is where the game of golf started. They play out here. They recognise that not every shot that gets airborne is a good shot. If you hit a shot up there to 30, 40 feet, and they know it’s a good shot, you’ll hear the difference in the ovation. That’s why all of us that come out here and play in The Open Championship truly admire and respect the fans. We know that they truly understand the game.
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Winning an Open at St Andrews is as special as it gets. It’s something you dream about. All players who want to win The Open, automatically you go right to St Andrews. And to have won it twice and complete my career Grand Slam twice, it doesn’t get any sweeter than that.
Muirfield in 2002 saw the hardest conditions I’ve ever played in [Woods shot 81 in the third round]. We weren’t prepared for that weather. I don’t think anyone was. It hit when we were on the putting green getting ready to go out. By the time we got on the 1st hole, the temperature dropped, rain was coming sideways, and gusts were over 40mph. The 4th hole, a par 3, normally we were hitting 7-irons in. I hit a 2-iron, and it probably should have been a 3-wood. And then the next hole was a 2-iron, 2-iron par-5, I hit driver, 2-iron, 2-iron. And it was so cold. But I tried all the way around.
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I hit it well and I got lucky a few times in 2005 [when he avoided all of St Andrews’ 112 bunkers over 72 holes]. I should have been in probably three or four bunkers, easily. Just off the tee shots alone, it happened to hop over a bunker and catch a side and kick left or right of it. Fortunately, I got lucky a few times.
When I got to Hoylake in 2006, I had to decide whether to lay up to the fairway bunkers or try to fly them. They had redone the bunkers and you couldn’t advance the ball. There were some where you had to hit it out sideways. By staying with my plan, I think I hit over 80 percent of the fairways utilising a 3-wood and a 2-iron. I had three eagles that week and nothing bigger than my seven bogeys.
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Tiger Woods holds the Claret Jug Open trophy after winning the 2000 Open at St Andrews' Old Course
