His comeback after the life-threatening car crash seemed fanciful but Woods has defied limits throughout his career
Tiger Woods’s first real memory of the Masters is of watching Jack Nicklaus play on the Sunday of 1986. Woods was 10, and had been out to play nine holes with his dad that morning, they were back in front of the TV in time to see Nicklaus, then 46, come around the turn in one of the most famous rounds in the history of the majors, from six shots back, he made five birdies and an eagle, and won by one. Woods remembers watching him hit that famous second shot on 15, from the hill over the water and to 12 feet from the hole, and the way he raised both fists in the air to celebrate, and wondering why he was so happy when he still had to make the putt.
Over the years Woods has asked Nicklaus, more than once, what he was thinking about in that moment. Woods never really got a good answer out of Nicklaus, but, according to his book Unprecedented this is the way he’s come to think about it: “He did what he needed to do to put himself in a position to win the Masters. He wasn’t thinking about winning. He was thinking only about the shot, and what he needed to do. He wasn’t getting ahead of himself.”
