In April, 2019, Tiger Woods completed what was hailed as the ‘comeback of the decade’ when winning the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Club for the fifth time and his fifteenth major championship in all. Woods, 43, had not won the Masters since 2005 or a major championship, of any description, since the US Open in 2008.
Indeed, in recent years, Woods has been plagued by back problems, which eventually resulted in spinal fusion surgery in April, 2017. However, two years later his recovery appeared complete, as he came from two strokes behind 54-hole leader Francesco Molinari – the first time he had done so in a major championship – to win by a single shot. Molinari found Rae’s Creek with his tee shot on the famous twelfth hole and compounded the error by finding water again on the fifteenth; he eventually dropped away to finish joint-fifth after a final round of 74.
Woods, meanwhile, was on the way to a two-under-par 70, which took his 72-hole total to -13 and a one-shot victory over compatriots Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele and Brooks Koepka. In fact, Woods had the luxury of being able to make a bogey on the final hole, which he did, after apparently fluffing his second shot, but a safe two-putt from 14 or 15 feet sealed a momentous victory. His first major championship win for 11 years leaves Woods just one behing Jack Nicklaus’ record of six Masters Tournament victories.