Among the victories were the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. Woods changed the game in many
The early-30s trend continued
Tiger Woods had two peaks; at age 25 when he won the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and eight other events, and at age 32, when he won the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
throughout the transitional post-Watson era: Greg Norman was 31 (’86), Nick Faldo 33 (’90). Seve Ballesteros, always an iconoclast, actually peaked twice: at 26 (’83) and 31 (’88). In more modern times there has been a sharp divergence, and as always the Tiger factor must be exam- ined. In 2000, the year he turned 25, Woods had the greatest season in golf history, winning nine tournaments, including three major championships, setting an all-time scoring record at each. Interestingly, his caddie Steve Williams doesn’t consider this the peak; he believes Tiger played bet- ter from August 2007-June 2008, a stretch that included Woods’s 32nd birthday and ended abruptly with knee surgery. During that run, he teed it up 11 times, winning eight tournaments and finishing second twice.
significant ways. His emphasis on physical conditioning shamed his colleagues into going to the gym, and Tiger’s bravado, seething inten- sity and raw physicality attracted a younger, more athletic generation to the sport. His emergence as the most famous man on the planet drove monster TV contracts that flooded the PGA Tour with unprecedented riches. Woods also has an underrated role in spawning the equipment revo- lution. Throughout the summer of his epic 2000 campaign he put in play a prototype of a solid-core Nike ball. Titleist had been experimenting with a version of its own with the unwieldy name Pro-V1, but felt it was at least a year away from being ready to come to market. Woods’ dominance led to a near-revolt among Titleist staffers, and in October 2000 they were given the first-generation of the Pro-V1. Golf would never be the same. All of these Tiger
factors—increased train- ing, space-age equipment, big money—have affected Tour
players’ peak. In the first generation after Woods’ arrival the peak years spiked from the early 30s to 40 be- coming the new normal: Kenny Perry was 43 (’03), Vijay Singh 41 (’04), Padraig Harrington 37 (’08), Steve Stricker 42 (‘09), Jim Furyk 40 (’10). “There’s no doubt equipment helped a lot of us older guys,” says Perry, who in 2008, at 48, had a three- win season that was almost as good as his ‘03. “I know I started hitting it far- ther in my 40s than my 20s. Some of that was technique, but mostly it was the ball and the driver. That allowed me to stay competitive much longer than I ever dreamed possible.”
he money kept them going, too. The generation that was born around 1970 was making
a good living before Woods crashed the scene, but after the turn of the century, obscene amounts of dollars were there for the taking; in 2010, when he won the FedEx Cup, Furyk banked a life-changing $15 million in on-course earnings, plus a bunch
Arnold Palmer peaked
at 31, in 1960, when he won the U.S. Open in heroic fashion at Cherry Hills.
38 /
NCGA.ORG / FALL 2015
TIGER WOODS AND ARNOLD PALMER PHOTOS: USGA
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