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    At the Masters, Champions Past, Present and Future

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    Seventy-five years ago this past week, Sam Snead won the Masters Tournament and became the first champion to receive one of Augusta National Golf Club’s green jackets.Until he died in 2002, the jacket was his to wear every time he returned to Augusta. These days, it is a sartorial symbol of how, beyond a freighted history and marvelous azaleas and golf’s geopolitical machinations and gallery roars that ripple from Amen Corner to the clubhouse, Augusta National is more enchanted by champions than most places.Since the start of the month, Lottie Woad has captured the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Eight children were named champions of a junior golf competition after playing at Augusta. More than 30 past Masters winners gathered for dinner to honor Jon Rahm, last year’s champion, and Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson hit tee shots to start this year’s tournament. Many of their brethren played afterward, because they are allowed to for life. On Sunday, someone — perhaps someone new, perhaps someone already admitted to the locker room reserved for past champions — will win the 88th Masters.There may be no place in men’s golf where hope, dazzle and ambition are as abundant as Augusta.But this past week, all of the possibilities seemed to be on greater display than usual. There was the solar eclipse on Monday, when fans peered skyward, just as Ben Crenshaw and Nick Faldo did here, too. Later on, Tiger Woods, 48 years old and two years removed from the last time he finished a major tournament, made his record 24th consecutive Masters cut. But he faded on Saturday. Higher up the leaderboard during the third round, players like Ludvig Aberg, Nicolai Hojgaard, Max Homa and Xander Schauffele hunted for their debut major title, while Bryson DeChambeau, Collin Morikawa and Cameron Smith looked to build on the magic that had made them champions elsewhere not all that long ago. Scottie Scheffler occasionally stumbled but was still at once contending for another Masters victory and wondering if he could lock it down before the birth of his first child.Golf enthusiasts often regard a trip to the Masters as the stuff of dreams. It certainly is for players. The Masters represents a shot at becoming one of those champions written into history, with the green jackets and the possibility of forever enchanting Augusta.Spectators cast their eyes skyward to witness Monday’s solar eclipse.Winners of the Chip and Putt competition.Honorary starter names are placed at the first tee.Scottie Scheffler, left, hits out of the bunker as Stewart Hagestad, right, hits out off the bunker on the 12th hole during a practice round.Tiger Woods looks at his tee shot on the third hole.Bryson DeChambeau, center, carries a Masters sign along the 13th fairway.Luke List watches his shot on the seventh hole.Danny Willett reacts after making a birdie.Collin Morikawa stretches as he walks along the 15th fairway. More

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      Nick Faldo Talks About Retirement and More

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      The six-time major champion has retired after 16 years as a CBS analyst. It’s given him time to consider playing one last tournament.For the first time since 2006, England’s Nick Faldo wasn’t in the booth this past season as the lead golf analyst for CBS.He was on the range — and not just the driving range. A six-time major champion from 1987 through 1996, he was at his home in Montana.Faldo, 66, the only four-time winner of the BMW PGA Championship, which begins Thursday at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England, discussed recently those victories and the game that has meant so much to him.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.Do you miss your job at CBS?Yes and no. I loved being with the guys, but I had enough of being out there every week. They’ve just done 23 tournaments this season, and I couldn’t do that anymore. I’ve been flying since I was 19, when I went on tour. I’ve got plenty to do. [Golf course] design work is going very well. It’s just nice to be chilling and doing your own thing each day.Are you paying attention to the tour?Not as much. I’ve rarely watched it on TV. I’ve watched it maybe through highlights on social media. I’m more interested in the Ryder Cup because I’m going. I think it’s going to be really big, a great atmosphere.Nick Faldo and Fanny Sunesson, his former caddie, at the 2022 British Open.David Cannon/Getty ImagesWho do you think will win it?I think our backbone looks more impressive than America’s backbone at the moment, to be really honest.What do you mean by the backbone?The top six. Back in my day, [former Europe captain] Tony Jacklin said, “You six, you’re playing five matches. You’re doing the heavy lifting.” We said, “Fine.”So, are you going as far as to say that Europe is going to win?Yeah, I would. We should.Has Team Europe’s captain, Luke Donald, picked your brain at all?Yeah. I bumped into him at the [British] Open. A couple of little ideas I had, mainly for practice. I won’t say what.Of your four victories at Wentworth, do any one of them stand out?Well, I really enjoyed the one at Royal St. George’s [in 1980] because we played that in May. And that golf course in May, if you get just a little bit of rain on the links, is perfect. That week, all I practiced were one, two, and three irons. It paid off. I remember hitting one iron into 15, that tiny little green. It was one of the key shots on the way to winning. That turf was so gorgeous to hit off.What kind of player does the Wentworth course suit?A pretty accurate one. There are trees literally left and right. That’s its main character.Nick Faldo after his win at Royal Birkdale in 1978.Phil Sheldon/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesThe victory over Ken Brown, in 1978 at Royal Birkdale was a big one, wasn’t it?That was the very first 72-hole [tournament] I won, which was amazing because I had already played a Ryder Cup. On the putting green, I was holing like 40-footers, thinking, “Oh, this is good.” I won about 10,000 pounds. How about that? It was the PGA. It was big. I loved it.Are you playing any golf these days?Yeah, I’ve got a nice club here and a really nice range, a [Tom] Weiskopf course. I still like to pop up there and belt balls.What do you get out of it?Well, that’s the great thing about our game. I go up there, and I’ve got different spots on downslopes and sideslopes and I whack away. I wear myself out for an hour and a half, and I still learn something. And I think I’ve still got it. Isn’t that great? That’s 50 plus years later. I’d love to play one more [tournament]. I want to get myself fit and strong.Where?I don’t know yet. I want to get Fanny [Sunesson, his former caddie] on the bag.Are you serious about this?Yeah. I want to play something. And the big word is, Can I enjoy it? That’s the only goal. Somewhere [on the senior tour] where I have time to gear up. I’ll try to do something next year. I got to. I’ll be 67 next summer. More

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      On Second Thought, St. Andrews Steps Back From Remodel by Swilcan Bridge

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      Want a patio-like surface by a bridge that’s perhaps more than 700 years old? St. Andrews did, but many others most definitely did not.St. Andrews Links — the stately sporting refuge in Scotland that has outlasted major champions, monarchs and well-to-do duffers — caved Monday and abandoned plans for a patio-like surface by the Swilcan Bridge.Few locales in golf invite quite so many pilgrimages as the stone bridge, which crosses a burn on the Old Course’s 18th hole and is the centerpiece of photographs that surface in Scottish pubs, man-caves all over suburban America and Tiger Woods’s office in Florida. So, perhaps it was predictable that even some well-intentioned remodeling of the area around it, worn down by the footwear of many thousands of players and visitors, would lead to fury, confusion and more than a few memes.Golf, you might have heard, is not always keen on change, and the resulting kerfuffle will amount to a brief, if breathtakingly effective, chapter in the very long history — like, maybe more than 700 years — of a 30-foot bridge. The whole spat, of course, could have been avoided had the bridge stuck to its long-ago mission of catering to livestock.But since that did not happen and because many people cannot mimic Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus or Woods on their scorecards, they merely congregate at the bridge, wave like a British Open champion, memorialize the moment for Facebook or Instagram and march on their way, leaving tattered turf behind.The idea that set off the scorn, course officials said over the weekend, was to replicate a past stone pathway and guard against repeated bouts of “disrepair” after a handful of other strategies, including artificial turf, proved insufficient. They added that they could “categorically state that no works have been undertaken to the bridge itself.”As if that would calm down, say, the denizens of Twitter. By Monday night, the Old Course was seeking another solution, new, old or at least not that one.“The stonework at the approach and exit of the bridge was identified as one possible long term solution,” the course’s administrators said in a statement that conceded that “while this installation would have provided some protection, in this instance we believe we are unable to create a look which is in keeping with its iconic setting and have taken the decision to remove it.”The statement noted “feedback from many partners and stakeholders as well as the golfing public,” which was a most proper way to characterize social media-fueled disdain and mockery.“What in the world were those idiots thinking building this?” Hank Haney, who once coached Woods, wrote on Twitter on Sunday. Nick Faldo, whose six major tournament titles included the 1990 Open at St. Andrews, was also aghast.“If you’ve travelled halfway around the world for your bucket list round at St Andrews, would you rather leave with a bit of historic dirt on your shoes or a few cement mix scraps?” he asked. Perhaps, he mused, the approach was a “strategically placed sundial (for slow play).”St. Andrews officials said Monday that turf would be restored “in the coming days.” Even though the internet never seems to forget, there is plenty of time for recovery between now and the next Open at St. Andrews. This year’s tournament will be at Royal Liverpool, the 2024 festivities will be at Royal Troon and 2025 will see the competition return to Royal Portrush.The R&A, which organizes the Open, has not announced its plans for other years. More

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      Masters Invitations Endure as a Signature Detail for the Tournament

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      Follow our live coverage of the first round of the Masters.AUGUSTA, Ga. — The invitations have come his way for half a century, and Ben Crenshaw, now 70 years old, has kept each and every one.“The Board of Governors of the Augusta National Golf Club,” the handsome cards invariably begin, “cordially invites you to participate” in the year’s Masters Tournament.“I’m elated every time,” Crenshaw, who won the Masters in 1984 and 1995, said in an interview. “Every player will tell you that. They get that formal invitation, and it’s there before you, and it’s, ‘Wow, I’m qualified to play in the event.’”Few competitions in sports openly cultivate and savor mystique like the Masters, whose opening round will be played on Thursday. There are the green jackets for winners and Augusta National members, the Tuesday night dinners for past champions and the cheap pimento cheese sandwiches for fans, the manicured rectitude of a course splendid with azaleas and dogwoods and largely, proudly devoid of modern life’s conveniences and intrusions.One of the tournament’s throwback rituals, though, begins months before the field faces Augusta National’s punishing greens, and it usually unfolds in private: the mailing and receipt of invitations to the men who have qualified for the Masters.Augusta, quintessentially Southern, asks the golfers to R.S.V.P. to the invitations, which it has sent since the tournament’s start in 1934.The 2019 R.S.V.P. sent by Tiger Woods, who won the Masters that year.“Good style is always right at the time, good taste is always in taste,” said Gary Player, who won nine major tournaments, including three at Augusta National. “When you get that invitation, if you see it, it’s so exquisitely done with such class. Everything in business is negotiable except quality, and that embraces it to the hilt.”Player, one of the honorary starters for this year’s tournament, added in an interview in January: “I still look at it and I come back to the same conclusion: I’m just overwhelmed at how they do things with class.”The Masters has always been an invitational event, even before it was called the Masters, though its appeal and prestige have swelled since the tournament’s early days. The opportunity to play today is hardly a surprise — Augusta National publishes a roster of clear-cut ways to qualify, from being a previous Masters champion to finishing in the top four at the previous year’s P.G.A. Championship, though it has the authority to ask others to compete. But players aren’t always aware that the storied tournament comes with a physical invitation.Patrick Reed, who earned one of Augusta National’s green jackets in 2018, recalled that he had been tipped off to keep an eye on the mail for his first invitation after he won the Wyndham Championship, but that it was still “unbelievable” when the envelope from the club near the Savannah River arrived ahead of the 2014 Masters. He kept that first invitation, as well as the one from the year after he won.“Both of them are ones I’m going to save and cherish forever,” he said at a news conference in 2019, even though he did not know where his other invitations had wound up over the years. He added, “Just the chills when you’re opening it up, it’s just an awesome experience — even though it’s just a piece of paper that has your invitation on it.”Neither Crenshaw nor Player could recall any other tournament with quite such a habit, or, at least, not one quite so polished. (“I don’t remember getting a letter from the R&A,” Player, who has long described the British Open as his favorite tournament, mused wryly of that event’s organizer.) Many in golf, including Crenshaw, ascribe the enduring formality to Bobby Jones, an Augusta National founder who died in 1971.“To me, it reflects what Bob Jones always retained on nearly everything that’s at Augusta: It’s proper, it has a certain amount of grace to it, there’s a touch of humility,” Crenshaw said. “It’s beautifully done, and the font has never changed, and the seal is on it. It’s the way they do things.”Gary Player sometimes sent warm holiday cards.If the invitations are almost entirely unchanged across the generations, the responses are still evolving. Many of today’s players reply by email. But for decades, pen and paper were the way of Augusta National, and the club recently allowed The New York Times to review a selection of the written responses it holds in its archives — pages of golf history, to be sure, but also glimpses of players’ personalities and changing fortunes.“It will be a pleasure to be there,” Herman Keiser wrote in cursive on “Herman Keiser Golf Pro” letterhead in February 1946, about two months before he won the Masters, his only major victory.“It is with pleasure that I accept your invitation to play in the Masters Tournament,” Claude Harmon said in a Western Union telegram the next year. “It is always a treat. Thanks.”Sam Snead used the letterhead of Miami’s Hotel Dallas Park — players over the years also corresponded from the Sands Hotel in Tucson, Ariz., and a Holiday Inn in San Ysidro, Calif. — to write in 1949 that he would “accept with pleasure,” while Lloyd Mangrum simply declared his intention to play in 1955 on the invitation itself and returned it to Augusta.Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo opted for brief, if warm, letters.Clockwise from top left: Nick Faldo in 1988; Arnold Palmer in 2003; Doug Ford in 1957; Tiger Woods in 1995. Arnold Palmer’s wife often appeared to prepare his replies, Player sent one on a Christmas card and Crenshaw, in 1995, accepted as he wondered what José María Olazábal would choose for the menu at the Champions Dinner. That same year, someone wrote an acceptance and noted that it was from “Eldrick ‘Tiger’ Woods,” who had just turned 19. Then there is Woods’s distinctive signature on a piece of paper that could have been bought in a department store stationery aisle.When Woods told Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman, in 2019 that he would play the Masters, the letterhead, emblazoned with the logo and the name of one of his corporate ventures, reflected his new station in life. (Woods’s agent did not respond to inquiries about who wrote the 1995 letter.)Some replies, like Palmer’s, felt formulaic, though he reflected in a 2003 letter that he anticipated “seeing my many friends at Augusta National during the week.” Others said they sought variety in how they crafted their responses, even as they were aware of what Augusta really wanted — simply an acceptance or regrets.“I tried to change it up a little bit,” Crenshaw said, “but they are just needing a response.”This year, in one way or another, 91 golfers accepted the invitation. More

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      Reliving How Tiger Woods Won the 1997 Masters

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      Follow our live coverage of the first round of the MastersPerhaps the most important thing to remember on the 25th anniversary of Tiger Woods’s seismic victory at the 1997 Masters, the first of his 15 major championships, is that almost no one saw it coming.Yes, Woods, then 21, had won three PGA Tour events, and there was avid interest in his first major as a professional. But one year earlier, as an amateur, he had missed the Masters cut. In 1995, he tied for 41st. It was accepted wisdom that grasping the intricate nuances of Augusta National Golf Club would take years. Woods, it was said repeatedly by the tour’s elders, would have to wait.“That’s how I felt,” Paul Azinger, a 14-year tour veteran in 1997 and the winner of the 1993 P.G.A. Championship, said in an interview last month. “It’s harder than it looks.”Azinger felt differently after he was paired with Woods in the second round. For the first time, he watched Woods hit a ball with a driver. Azinger, now 62, had never seen a golf shot hang in the air for so long as it rocketed away from the tee.“I can still see that white ball framed against the dark trees in the distance, then the blue sky and then the green fairway — it was a bullet that seemed to never stop,” Azinger, now an NBC golf analyst, said.The four days of the 1997 Masters would turn out to be a profound experience for those of us fortunate to be on the grounds at Augusta National, and for 44 million people who watched on television. It set records and broke cultural ground, as Woods became the first nonwhite athlete to win golf’s most tradition-bound event. It permanently reshaped almost every aspect of the game, how it would be broadcast and who might watch, and it was the first globally prominent chapter in the life of a young Black man with a catchy nickname who would soon become one of the most famous and most popular people in the world.Although many remember vividly the moment that Woods won — the 4-foot putt and his full-body fist pump — not everyone recalls that his week began inauspiciously.The First RoundAugusta National Golf ClubDuring his first nine holes on Thursday, Woods very nearly played his way out of the tournament. He shot a four-over-par 40 with four bogeys and no birdies. I realized it was possible for him to win, but it seemed unlikely. It was Augusta National. It takes time. Almost every enduring, top golfer from the last 60 years — Palmer, Nicklaus, Faldo, etc. — did not win the tournament until his fourth try. Most won in their fifth or sixth. And they weren’t 21, either.But when Woods then shot 30 on the back nine — and was calm in the news conference afterward, as if he had expected it — that’s when I knew he would be contending on Sunday.NICK FALDO (defending Masters champion, paired in the first round with Woods) We both made a mess on the front nine; just knocking it all over the place. I had won six majors so maybe people gave me a little slack, but for Tiger, I’m sure a lot of people were probably thinking, “Well, he’s still a little in over his head, isn’t he?”TOM KITE (finished second) The Tiger curiosity was very high so I have no doubt a lot of guys in the field heard about that opening 40.Tiger Woods teeing off on No. 18 in the first round of the 1997 Masters. He shot 30 on the back nine.Steve Munday/Allsport via Getty ImagesTOMMY BENNETT (one of many Black caddies picked by the club from the nearby Sand Hills neighborhood) Somebody told me Tiger shot 40, and I said, “Doesn’t matter, man, he’s not worried.” That kid was raised to be fearless. When I caddied for him in ’95 [at the Masters] he only put three balls in his bag and told me he wouldn’t need any more. And he didn’t. I knew he’d come back.FALDO Tiger birdied the 10th and chipped in for birdie on the 12th hole. That shot was basically the beginning of the rest of his career.JEFF SLUMAN (tied for seventh) The chip from behind the 12th green was incredibly difficult. Everybody watching was saying, “He’s got to be careful not to pitch that back into Rae’s Creek and make double bogey.” And bang! He puts it in the hole. Are you kidding?FALDO The crowds around us started getting bigger and bigger and louder and louder. He seemed to feed off that. It was the beginning of Tiger mania, right? I looked around and realized that this is really something to remember.Woods would birdie the par-5 13th and eagle the par-5 15th — for the tournament he would be 13 under on the par 5s — then added another birdie on the 17th hole. He finished at two-under-par 70, one of only seven golfers in the field of 86 to break par that day. Woods celebrated by heading to the drive-through of the Arby’s on Washington Road just beyond the club’s ornate front gate. He had two of his Stanford college buddies in the car. After they wolfed down roast beef sandwiches at the house rented with Woods’s parents, Earl and Kultida, they played basketball in the driveway and table tennis in the basement.The Second RoundAugusta National Golf ClubKITE The conditions had been so hard the first day — windy with very firm greens — you bet 70 was a good score. People noticed.AZINGER I suddenly realized how many people were following us and how much pressure he was already under.LEE WESTWOOD (playing in his first Masters) It was obvious how strong he was mentally, and his age did not matter.AZINGER We get to the 13th hole on the back nine and he’s now four under par for the tournament, which is not too shabby. Then Tiger goes eagle-birdie-birdie on 13, 14 and 15.JIM NANTZ (longtime CBS Masters host) Tiger made the putt for eagle on 13 and I looked at my watch thinking this might be a historic moment. I said, “Let the record show that a little after 5:30 on this Friday, April the 11th, Tiger takes the lead for the very first time at the Masters.”Woods and Paul Azinger waiting to tee off on the eighth hole in the second round.Amy Sancetta/Associated PressAZINGER Tiger was hitting a wedge or 9-iron to the greens on the back nine par 5s while some guys were hitting 3-woods there. Tiger looked like he wasn’t more than 155 pounds and his swing was so fierce I worried for his back even then, but my goodness, every shot had such integrity. As pros, we know it when we see it.JUSTIN LEONARD (1997 British Open champion) We were trying to beat this guy, but I knew I couldn’t drive it as far, I didn’t hit my irons as well, I didn’t have his short game and I didn’t putt as well. You knew you were going to be able to watch history, but you weren’t going to be making any history yourself.At the midpoint of the tournament, Colin Montgomerie, a sometimes crusty Scot who at 33 had competed in 22 majors and finished in the top 10 five times, trailed Woods by three strokes. In a packed news conference after the second round, Montgomerie said of Woods, “The pressure is mounting, and I have a lot more experience in major championships than he has.”The Third RoundAugusta National Golf ClubBefore Woods’s third round on Saturday began — he was in the final grouping, the prime TV spot, with Montgomerie — Butch Harmon, Woods’s coach, put his arm around his pupil and said, “Let’s go show Colin Montgomerie who you really are.”Woods responded, “Oh, don’t worry.”LEONARD I would have said the same thing as Colin. As professional golfers you have to try to draw on experience if you have it, and Colin had the experience — with some success. But at the end of the day it didn’t matter at all.Woods, in a 2007 interview on the 10th anniversary of his 1997 victory, said: “Colin’s comment did motivate me. Maybe if he had already won a major I might have let it go, but since he had not, I figured we were pretty even going into that round.”BERNHARD LANGER (1985 and 1993 Masters champion) I had played in Thailand with Tiger when he was an amateur and it was clear as day that this was going to be a different kind of rookie on tour. In the third round Saturday he shot 65, right? Seven birdies? It doesn’t sound like he was very nervous to me.SLUMAN He wasn’t afraid of anything. The bigger the stage the better for him. I made a comment when I was in pretty good position on the leaderboard that maybe all the guys on tour should take up a collection and offer to send him to grad school or something.By the third round, Colin Montgomerie knew he had no chance to overtake Woods, and he wasn’t happy about it.Augusta National/Getty ImagesMONTGOMERIE (after he shot 74 to Woods’s bogey-free 65) All I have to say is one brief comment today. There’s no chance humanly possible that Tiger is going to lose this tournament. No way.When a reporter recalled that Greg Norman in 1996 had lost a six-stroke, final-round lead to Faldo, Montgomerie snorted: “Faldo’s not lying second, for a start. And Greg Norman’s not Tiger Woods.”As they had since the tournament started, Woods and his college buddies went to Arby’s. Then they played basketball and table tennis.The Final RoundAugusta National Golf ClubLate the next morning, Woods donned what would become his trademark Sunday colors: a blood red sweater and black pants. Before he left for the course, Woods ascended the stairs and entered the bedroom of his father, Earl, who had recently undergone surgery for his ailing heart.“Son,” Earl said when he saw Tiger, “this is probably going to be one of the toughest rounds you’ve ever had to play in your life.”The day carried a weight, and when Woods arrived at the course, a visitor found him. It was Lee Elder, the first Black golfer to play the Masters, in 1975. Elder got a speeding ticket on the drive to Augusta. An honorary starter at the 2021 Masters seven months before he died, Elder told reporters in 1997: “Nothing was going to stop me from getting here. I made history here, and I came here today to see more history made. After today, no one will turn their head when a Black man walks to the first tee.”Henry Ashley, the headwaiter at Augusta National and one of about 20 Black club employees who lined the plantation-style clubhouse balcony to catch a glimpse of Woods on the first tee, told The Greensboro News and Record: “Tiger’s the man, period. He’s your man; he’s my man.”After Woods thundered a tee shot toward the first fairway, the congregation of club employees remained on the balcony to watch him walk onto the course. As Woods disappeared over a distant hill, the employees, one by one, turned and walked through a single thin door frame to continue their clubhouse duties.Woods, teeing off on No. 3 in the final round, had captivated the gallery.Steve Munday/Allsport via Getty ImagesLANGER I don’t know all about American history. But there were a lot of scenes like that in 1997. You know, seeing Tiger win the Masters, I think, in effect, said, “You can do what I’m doing.” I’m convinced it had an impact on future generations that were not white.COSTANTINO ROCCA (accompanied Woods on Sunday) The mood was festive, like a celebration or a big party. I’m not sure the crowd even knew there was a little Italian guy playing with him. The atmosphere was powerful.KITE Because the final round of the Masters has seen many historic collapses, nobody was conceding Tiger the title — even if he would have had to collapse like crazy to be caught. But there was still a wait-and-see attitude.ROCCA I did cut his lead by a stroke after the first seven holes when Tiger made a couple bogeys. Then he hit his tee shot on No. 8 into the trees and I thought maybe there’s some chance. What if I make birdie and he makes double bogey? Instead, I made par and he made birdie.KITE It was case closed.SLUMAN From there, a coronation.NANTZ I talked briefly to Lee [Elder]. There was emotion in his eyes. And fatigue.ROCCA (tied for fifth) On the last nine holes, the crowd was getting crazier and crazier, and at one point Tiger turned to me and asked if I was OK. He’s a nice guy, and I was proud of him.NANTZ I kept thinking about how much this moment meant to so many people. It transcended the sport, and seeing Lee Elder was a visual cue to me.As Woods, his baggy pants flapping in the wind, sank a last putt to set 20 Masters records, including youngest winner and largest margin of victory (12 strokes), Nantz said, “There it is, a win for the ages.”

      After the WinThe victory was transformative, particularly for golf, though not in every way imagined. Designers tried to “Tiger-proof” their golf courses by making them longer and more difficult. Woods’s crossover appeal, long predicted, swiftly materialized. Ten days later, in a sign of his cultural transcendence, Woods gave Oprah Winfrey his first post-Masters interview. He was sent up by “Saturday Night Live.”Inspired by Woods’s trailblazing achievement, Sean Combs, the rap mogul known as Puff Daddy, called Hype Williams, an award-winning music and film director and producer. Their conversation about what had transpired at Augusta National became the conceit of the hip-hop video “Mo Money Mo Problems,” which also featured the rapper Mase. It was released three months after Woods won the Masters.

      HYPE WILLIAMS Puff was very excited about the idea of Tiger Woods and adamant about starting a video with him as a Tiger Woods character. With Mase and Puff, we had the opportunity to let them embellish on Tiger Woods and the big moment that the sport was having in 1997. That’s what it represented. Coincidentally, I just shot Tom Brady’s campaign for his golf line. Tom also happens to be a very serious golfer, and he was heavily influenced by “Mo Money Mo Problems.” He told me he wanted that energy of the original video for his campaign, a ’90s energy that Tiger came to exemplify.DUSTIN JOHNSON (then 12) When I was growing up, in high school you were kind of a dork if you played golf. But Tiger actually made it a cool sport to play.Nick Faldo put the green jacket on Woods.Dave Martin/Associated PressIn 2020, Woods put the jacket on Dustin Johnson.Doug Mills/The New York TimesJoe Beditz, the president of the National Golf Foundation, saw the impact, including a 22 percent increase in recreational golf participation and a 50 percent jump in the number of nonwhite golfers from when Woods turned pro in 1996 to 2001.JOE BEDITZ Tiger’s biggest impact, by far, was on golf’s public awareness. He became ubiquitous: TV ads, magazine covers, interviews and television appearances. The ultra-elevated public awareness was the headspring from which all of golf’s blessings flowed — more fans, more golfers, more courses, more equipment sales.In the same five-year period beginning in 1996, PGA Tour prize money mushroomed by 172 percent, television ratings for the Masters jumped by 58 percent and network cameras tried to capture every shot struck by Woods at any tournament.NANTZ The idea was to never lose track of Tiger during the entire body of a three-hour broadcast. It was a new era for golf because a golfer was now maybe the most famous athlete in the world.The pervasive belief in the wake of Woods’s 1997 Masters victory was that it would be a catalyst for diversifying professional golf, which had a well-deserved reputation for exclusionary tactics and biases. The PGA Tour had a Caucasian-only clause until 1961. Elder was not welcomed to the Masters until 14 years later. Woods’s 1997 Masters breakthrough and exploding fame were expected to bring sweeping change. But 25 years later, there are no more than a handful of Black golfers on the PGA Tour.JARIAH BEARD (one of dozens of Black caddies at Augusta National from 1955 to 1983) We had more Black pros in the 1960s than we do now. In the 1980s, another Black golfer, Calvin Peete, won 12 PGA Tour events. He won the Players Championship and was near the top of the money rankings list almost every year. Tiger came along 10 years later, but how many have followed him?EDWARD WANAMBWA (an editor for African American Golfer’s Digest and a former caddie for Elder) It was a bit naïve to think there was going to be this sudden influx of African American golfers. Why didn’t the floodgates open? Because elite golf is not a cheap endeavor — the equipment, the travel, the entry fees to tournaments, it’s expensive. There are well-meaning initiatives to introduce the game to junior golfers, but the mechanisms for getting to the tour weren’t there.Lee Elder talked to Woods before the final round.Augusta National/Getty ImagesBEARD (81, still lives in Augusta) Tiger’s win really helped young white golfers more than Black golfers. The young white golfers made Tiger their hero and emulated his swing, his workout habits, his aggressiveness. They all became better because of Tiger.GARY WOODLAND (2019 U.S. Open champion) I’ve watched Tiger win that first Masters on an old VHS tape maybe 400 million times.JOEL DAHMEN (sixth year on the PGA Tour) I’ve watched too many times to count. At least 40. Every time it comes on, I don’t care if Tiger is on the first hole in that final round, I have to watch the whole thing.WANAMBWA That’s the thing, it was still great to watch a brother — someone who looks like us — slip on the green jacket at Augusta National. It was a win for all the Black caddies and all the Black golfers who never got to play there. That supersedes all the rest.Woods skipped Arby’s after Sunday’s final round. As is tradition, the Augusta National membership feted the Masters champion and his family at a ceremonial dinner as the sun was setting on the grounds. When Woods got back to his rental house, a party ensued for the tenants and invited guests with no shortage of adult beverages.At some point late in the night, Woods slipped away from the gathering. Later, Earl Woods went looking for the Masters champion. He peeked into his son’s bedroom and found him asleep on the bed, his arms hugging his green jacket.After sinking the final putt, Woods fell into the arms of his father, Earl.Dave Martin/Associated PressInterviews have been edited and condensed.

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