Tiger, Tiger

ONE

ONE

The 83rd Masters

Augusta National Golf Club Augusta, Georgia

April 14, 2019

The dream begins in a fourth-grade classroom.

At the Benjamin School, in North Palm Beach, Florida, ten-year- old Charlie Woods sits at his desk wearing a blue-and-orange school uniform and staring down at a blank notebook.

What is your wish?

The answer is easy. He wants to stand on a golf green and — for the first time in his life — witness his father, the world-famous Tiger Woods, win a tournament.

Charlie’s made this wish before.

On Sunday, July 22, 2018, Charlie and his older sister, Sam, were among the 175,000 spectators at Carnoustie Golf Links, in Angus, Scotland. The siblings looked nervously at the British Open scoreboard as their father’s lead evaporated on the back nine.

But in April of 2019, Tiger, determined that he’s not “going to let that happen to them twice,” tries again to persuade Charlie and Sam.

You want to come up to watch the Masters?

“No way, unless my sister comes,” Charlie says, deferring to eleven- year-old Sam. But after her soccer team is eliminated from the Florida state tournament, Sam and Charlie join their grandmother, Kultida Woods, on a last-minute trip to Georgia.

Tiger was twenty-nine years old in 2005, the last time he won at Augusta National Golf Club. That was fourteen years — 5,117 days — ago. His forty-three-year-old body has undergone eight surgeries, four on his back and four more on his knee.

He’s told ESPN, “I want to be healthy for my kids.” Today is for them.

And for history.

In front of the clubhouse stands the Big Oak Tree, planted in the 1850s and now more than 150 years old.

Back in 1997, when twenty-one-year-old Tiger became the first minority golfer to win the Masters, the tree was surrounded by an unexpected line of fans in white jackets — the waiters and busboys of Augusta National. Today, those fans emerge once again as Tiger competes for his fifth Masters, and fifteenth major, win.

Sam and Charlie stand just off the green with their grandmother Tida.

Like his father, Charlie’s dressed in a red Nike top and black ball cap.

The final-round lead shifts among six players, including Tiger. His putt on the 18th is for bogey, but it’s good enough.

He’s the winner — by a single stroke.

“Ti-ger! Ti-ger!” the crowd chants for the now five-time Masters champion.

Charlie runs to his father and jumps into his arms, squeezing him “tighter and tighter.”

Tiger reaches for his mom, and the two of them sandwich Charlie in another hug.

Sam cheers enthusiastically but hangs back a little as the cameras follow. “Sam, she doesn’t like the spotlight, can’t stand it,” Tiger says of his daughter. He understands. “She doesn’t have to say anything.” He pulls Sam close as they embrace, and she buries her face in his chest.

“I’m so proud of you, boy. So proud of you,” Tida tells Tiger. “You counseled with Dad last night, didn’t you?”

She knows how incredibly proud Earl Woods, Tiger’s dad, would’ve been if he were here.

In the interview room afterward, Tida sits smiling in a green club chair, listening to her son reminisce about his 1997 Masters win.

“It’s been twenty-two years,” she hears him say nostalgically. “Life goes on. But there’s been one continuity through it all — my mom was there.”

That evening, the tradition continues. Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, helps Tiger into the fabled Green Jacket, the same rye-green wool coat he’s donned four times before.

“It fits,” he says.