Woods Embraces Father's Legacy

10 Years After His First Masters Win, Dad's Hug Lingers

AUGUSTA, Ga., April 3 -- Ask Tiger Woods what he remembers most about his historic victory in the 1997 Masters, and his answer has little to do with his record-breaking 72-hole score of 18-under-par 270, or his unprecedented 12-shot winning margin -- after a disastrous 4-over 40 on his first nine holes -- in becoming the youngest champion, at age 21, in tournament history.

Instead, he always goes back to The Hug.

As he headed to the scorer's hut after holing his final putt of the day, his father, Earl, intercepted Woods and enveloped him a long, lingering embrace.

"I guess for me, personally, now that my father is no longer here, I know how important that hug was to me on the last hole," Woods said two weeks ago. "You know, the year before, he had a heart attack at the Tour Championship, and he ended up having heart surgery again. He had complications. I was in Florida and flew straight back, and he was actually dead for a while. . . . He used to tell the story that: 'Yeah, I saw this warm light, I was kind of headed toward it. I said hey, you know what, I grew up in Kansas, so let me go back the other way.'

"And when he went back the other way, all of a sudden he heard the [medical monitors] beeping and he came back. He just always used to say, 'I'm not ready for the place yet.' So he went down to Augusta the week of the Masters against his doctor's orders. He wasn't supposed to travel. . . . I had been playing pretty well up until that point. But I get there and I can't putt a lick -- the worst speeds, the worst lines."

So, just as he'd done all his life, Earl Woods, who died last May after a long battle with prostate cancer, gave his son a putting lesson. The next day, Woods -- in his first Masters as a professional -- struggled on his front nine until he finally made a decent putt to save a bogey at the ninth hole, and he was off and running.

"All of a sudden it happened," he said. "I made a bomb on number 10, chipped in on 12. When I got up to Saturday night with dad, he and I were just sitting there, past midnight, and we were just talking. He said: 'You know, it's going to be the most important round of your life, but you can handle it. Just go out there and do what you do. Just get in your own little world, go out there and thrash 'em.' So that was the mind-set. When I hugged him on 18, looking back on it now, I could not have won that tournament without him."

As Woods prepared to tee off for his final round that Sunday 10 years ago, the sociological implications of what he was about to do also were plainly evident. On the clubhouse balcony, 50 yards from the first tee, scores of Augusta National's waiters, busboys, cooks and other service personnel, virtually all of them African American, leaned over the railing to see history in the making.

Down on the ground, standing on a slight incline to get a better view, Lee Elder, the first African American to play in the Masters in 1974, tried and failed to control his own emotions. He had taken a flight from his home in South Florida that morning and made the 2 1/2 -hour drive from Atlanta's airport, going so fast he was stopped for speeding by an unforgiving Georgia trooper. And as Woods prepared to hit his first shot, Elder could barely speak as tears flooded his eyes.

"If Tiger Woods wins here, it might have more potential than Jackie Robinson's break into baseball," Elder said that day. "No one will turn their head when a black man walks to the first tee."

When he walks to the first tee here on Thursday to play in his 13th Masters, all heads will turn toward Woods, arguably the most formidable force the game has ever seen. Thousands will trail him around Augusta National, and millions more will watch on televisions or computers around the world.

Woods, 31, already owns four green jackets and is heavily favored to win a fifth. He has won 12 majors, second only to his childhood hero, Jack Nicklaus. He has 56 victories on the PGA Tour and seems likely to shatter Nicklaus's record 18 major titles by the time he's 35. Nicklaus, who won his last major at age 46, has said that Woods seems a cinch to extend his record far beyond the reach of anyone who ever follows.