Golfs present and past tell how Tigers 97 Masters changed everything

There are some sporting events that grace our lives and leave such an indelible mark on us that we remember exactly where we were and what we were doing at that moment and how it impacted us.

Tiger Woods’ awe-inspiring assault of Augusta National en route to his record-shattering, 12-stroke Masters victory in 1997, in which he finished 18-under, is one of those sports moments that lives in infamy.

This week’s Masters marks the 20-year anniversary of that Woods introduction to the world as he changed the sport forever.

Some might argue that it feels like it took place just last year.

Others might argue that it feels like it was generations ago.

No one, however, would argue that it wasn’t one of the most important moments the sport has ever seen or that it changed lives as much as it changed the game.

Woods’ win that week increased golf tournament purses to obscene numbers. It sent TV contract numbers skyrocketing. It drew many more eyes to the game.

There’s little question that Woods’ meteoric rise in the game, beginning with that 1997 Masters win, helped produce some of the biggest stars in the game today.

The following are the accounts from many associated with the game whom The Post interviewed about where they were and what they remembered most about the week.

Charles Howell III

Howell, an Augusta, Ga., native who used to play high school matches at Augusta National and used to work the manual scoreboards during Masters weeks, said he “had known of’’ Woods before that week and “knew he was special, but I don’t think anybody quite knew he was all that.’’

“I can’t think of one golf tournament that’s changed the game more than that one,’’ Howell said. “You can almost pinpoint to that week the reason we’re playing for the money we’re playing for today and the fanfare of the game.

“In that win that week, he checked all the boxes. He’s young, he hit it far, he hit it straight, he had a phenomenal short game. He did it all, and he did it on the biggest, hardest stage in the world. I think in the history of time we’ll look back on that week as sort of a turning point for the professional game.”

Ernie Els

Els, who in later years would become a frequent major-championship bridesmaid to Woods, said he remembered seeing Woods on the range after the roller-coaster opening-round 70 that began with a 40 on the front nine and ended with a 30 on the back, “and I could see the excitement and the joy’’ in Woods’ face.

“He knew he’d won the first hurdle,’’ Els said. “I think he knew then that it was over.’’

Nick Faldo

Faldo, the defending champion who was paired with Woods in that opening round, knew it was over, too.

“The way I analyzed it, he went out in 40, came back in 30 and we didn’t see him for dust for another 14 years,’’ Faldo said. “That was the start of Tiger and the start of his dominance. It was a special day. You go out in 40 and then you win by 12. That’s something pretty unique.”

Faldo shot 75 that day and followed it with an 81 and missed the cut.

Paul Azinger

Azinger, an 11-time PGA Tour winner with one major championship, was paired with Woods in the second round. He began the day one shot ahead of Woods and ended it six shots behind after Woods’ 66 to his 73.

“I never had seen Tiger hit a shot until that round,’’ Azinger said. “When he won the way he won, it was amazing, but you didn’t know its place in history at the time. I didn’t understand its place in history at the time. It wasn’t, to me, the beginning of the unfolding of an historic run. I didn’t see it. My crystal ball had a crack in it.’’

Colin Montgomerie

One of the great exchanges of that week involved Montgomerie, who was paired with Woods in Saturday’s third round.

On Friday night, Montgomerie, three shots behind Woods, waxed poetic about the fact that the young Woods had never been in the position of taking a major championship lead into the weekend and how everything changes on the weekend of a major.

“The pressure is mounting … and I have a lot more experience in major championships,’’ Monty said that night.

Woods, in his recently published book, revealed that Montgomerie’s words “definitely motivated me.’’

Woods shot 65 that Saturday to Montgomerie’s 74, and after the round, Monty spoke as if he had seen a ghost.

“All I have to say is one brief comment today,’’ Monty told reporters. “There is no chance … we’re all human beings here … [and] there is no chance humanly possible that Tiger is going to lose this tournament. No way.’’

Montgomerie, on a recent NBC conference call, recalled that Saturday round by Woods as “the easiest 65 I’ve ever seen.’’

“From the second hole onwards, I thought, ‘Hang on a minute. This is something extraordinary,’ ’’ he said. “This is a game that I had not seen before and none of us had. I’m probably the reason he did what he did. I thought I would beat him. I was wrong. But I admitted it. I’d just witnessed something very special. I thought I shot a very solid 74 until I lost to him by nine shots. I witnessed something that nobody else had seen.’’

Montgomerie, surely rattled by the thumping he took from Woods on Saturday, shot 81 on Sunday.

Costantino Rocca

The Italian was paired with Woods in the final round. Trailing by eight shots at the start, Rocca played a bit part in the coronation as Woods shot 69 and won by the record 12 shots.

“At that time, he was very powerful and the people were going crazy to see this thing,’’ Rocca recalled. “From the 13th to the 18th, the people supported him like crazy. I don’t know if anyone remembered I was on the golf course. It was good for him, not for me.’’

Steve Stricker

Stricker had just played with Woods earlier in the year at Pebble Beach and realized, “I don’t have that game.’’

“He’s playing it 310 or 315 and hitting 3-wood past my driver and he just had this intimidating look about him and this belief in himself,’’ Stricker said. “So I saw it earlier in the year. But then to see him put it all together at Augusta was pretty cool. He showed the world what he was capable of at that time … and it was just a glimpse of what was to come.”

Gary Woodland

Woodland, as a teenage boy living in Kansas and playing every sport he could in ’97, said he watched that ’97 Masters on a VHS tape his mother gave him, and it changed his life.

“I watched it over and over and that’s when I got excited about golf,’’ Woodland said. “I was playing so many other sports that I wasn’t focused on golf. But Tiger was an athlete. Where I grew up, nobody played golf. But he made it cool.

“That week changed everything for me. I probably would have tried to play baseball or something else, but he made it cool for athletes to play golf and that’s what I wanted to do. Eventually, I probably will tell him that.’’

Brendan Steele

Steele was an impressionable teenager growing up outside of Palm Springs, Calif., when Woods did what he did in ’97.

“I had just kind of picked up golf,’’ Steele said. “I definitely remember sitting around and watching that Masters and
being so blown away by it — the dominance and the madness. I don’t know that I would be where I am without that week. It definitely motivated me and excited me about the game more than I had ever been before.’’

Jordan Spieth

“There’s nobody who had more influence in my golf game than Tiger,’’ Spieth said. “He brought it in every tournament … the dominance, the way that he was able to bring it in the majors, the way that he was able to kind of get into contention and be in contention and be at that highest kind of mental part of the game week-in and week-out and major-in and major-out.”

Jason Day

Day was a 9-year-old living in Rockhampton, a town in rural Queensland in Australia, when Woods was changing the game in a week.

“My dad had this turn-knob TV with bunny ears and you had to move the antenna to get the right picture and it was like really early in the morning,” Day recalled. “I remember [Woods] walking up the 18th and he obliterated the field. There’s two moments where Tiger really got me into golf — that moment when he won the ’97 Masters and I started playing more golf than I usually did at that age. Then when I read a book about him when I was 14. Those are the two moments that really kind of changed my life with regards to my career.”

Ian Poulter

Poulter, who was manning his local pro shop in England, selling golf shirts when Woods was dismantling Augusta in ’97, said what transpired “opened everyone’s eyes.’’

“When that happened in ’97, you don’t think anything other that, ‘Wow, this kid’s exceptional,’ ’’ Poulter said. “But I don’t think anyone thought right then he’s going to win 14 majors and take on Jack’s record. That week changed everything. It changed golf for everybody. It changed courses for us all, it changed purses, it changed equipment.’’

Bernhard Langer

Langer won the Masters in 1985 and 1993. So he knew his way around Augusta National about as well as anyone walking the grounds. And yet …

“I couldn’t believe some of the clubs he was hitting,’’ Langer said. “He was demolishing some of the par-4 and par-5s. It was sort of unheard of at the time. That got the Masters to do something about that — plant trees and make it longer. At that time, it looked like he was going to break Jack’s record and be the greatest player ever. Then he took a different turn.”

Nick Price

Price recalled Woods “totally overpowered the golf course,’’ adding, “We had not seen that happen at Augusta, I think probably since [Jack] Nicklaus back in the ’60s. It was a clinic for all of us. We knew that this was a whole new ballgame now.”

Adam Scott

“I remember that whole week very, very clearly,’’ Scott said. “I was watching on TV at home in Australia. It was the start of something amazing that happened over the next 10 or 11 years. If you think just about the reaction to how he played that golf course and then now what Augusta National Golf Club looks like now compared to what it looked like for the 50 years before Tiger, that’s a significant change.

“And then, you think of the influence Augusta National Golf Club has over golf around the rest of the world and the way courses have since been treated. They kind of led the ‘Tiger proofing,’ and now it seems like every course is ‘Tiger proofed.’ ’’

Andy North

North was working his first Masters as an analyst at ESPN that year and called Woods’ dominance “a signal that the rest of the golf world was going to be in a lot of trouble if they expected to beat this guy.’’

“And then there was the impact he’s had over the last 20 years,’’ North said. “He made golf cool for a lot of younger kids. If you were a kid playing in high school golf team back in the late ’90s and early 2000s all of a sudden now you were proud to walk through the front door of the school with your golf clubs to put in your locker, versus trying to sneak them in the back door. Now, all of a sudden people recognized that golf was a sport that meant something.’’

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