Golf · 1997 · Augusta, USA
Tiger's Twelve-Stroke Masters
A 21-year-old in his first Masters as a professional opens with a 40 on the front nine, then takes Augusta National apart for three and a half rounds and wins by twelve strokes.
270 (18-under, tournament record)
Winning score
12 strokes (record)
Margin of victory
21 (youngest Masters champion)
Age
Tiger Woods, playing his first Masters as a professional, shot a shaky 40 on the front nine of the opening round and then came home in 30, a warning sign most of the field managed to miss. He never let up again, following it with rounds of 66, 65 and 69 to finish at 18-under-par 270, a new tournament scoring record.
Twelve strokes separated him from Tom Kite in second, the largest margin of victory in Masters history, and the aggregate was the lowest anyone had posted at the tournament. He was 21 years old, the youngest Masters champion there had been, and the first golfer of Black or Asian heritage to win it.
Television audiences and galleries arrived from well outside golf's usual reach, and the sport's commercial arithmetic changed inside a week. The green jacket was fitted by the previous year's champion, as the ceremony requires, and it is the moment people point at when they date the start of the era.
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