Westwood still stunned a decade has gone by since Woods’ last major title
Briton had a front-row seat for a ‘classic Tiger moment’ as injured American went on to win 2008 US Open
Lee Westwood was far from surprised when he stood on the 18th green at Torrey Pines in 2008 and watched his playing partner convert a 15-footer to force the US Open to a play-off. Yet as Westwood listened to the roars and saw the icon in the red shirt lean back and pump both fists towards the heavens, he could never have conceived that Tiger Woods would fail to win another major for at least a decade.
“What price would I have given you on that happening?” Westwood asks. “Well, I couldn’t even have made up odds on that scenario. It was almost impossible to believe. But it just shows you, that’s golf. And, I suppose that’s life, as well.”
The 118th staging of America’s national championship – which starts at Shinnecock Hills on Thursday – is the 10th anniversary of Woods’s immortal triumph. Of course, the fact this was the 32-year-old’s 14th major title and his sixth in three years was a persuasive enough argument to be convinced the Tiger era would remain in full flow.
But what made the notion of such a long barren spell seem yet more ridiculous was the manner of that victory in San Diego. By winning with a blown kneecap and a double-stress fracture in his tibia, Woods had surely proved that with his apparently bottomless depths of willpower he could overcome any adversity.
The world now knows differently. A torrid sex scandal was to wreck his life and cement doubt in his previously unbreachable psyche, while back problems led to a succession of unsuccessful operations and a dependency on painkilling medication. Only 13 months ago, he was arrested after being found slumped over the steering wheel of his car.
At this point, Woods believed it was over – until a spinal fusion last June transformed him, in his own words, into a “walking miracle”. He is still down at 80th in the rankings, but the hype is as frenzied as ever and he will tee it up at Long Island rated by the bookmakers as fifth favourite.
The Woods of 2008 would have sniffed at this 16-1 billing, but the Woods of 2018 cannot believe his luck. He is back in with a shout of chalking up major No15 and it would be entirely fitting in his remarkable tale if he were to turn a supposedly depressing milestone into a riotous celebration.
Certainly Westwood would not put it beyond Woods, not after what he witnessed on that Sunday on the cliff-top layout overlooking the Pacific Ocean. They went out together in the final round in the final group, with Woods holding a one-shot advantage over the Englishman.
In his 11-year major odyssey to that point, Woods had never failed to win when holding the 54-hole lead, but still there was an air of tension.
Something was clearly not right with Woods. In fact, something was definitely wrong. Time and again in the first three rounds, Woods had screwed up his face in agony after playing a shot and on occasion he doubled up.
It was the same again on the Sunday. “Sometimes he grimaced, sometimes he didn’t,” Westwood recalls. “It was very on and off. We have always been quite pally and we talked all the way around and I kept asking him if he was all right. ‘Not really’, was about as much as Tiger said. I thought he had pulled a muscle. I didn’t think it was anywhere near as bad as we later found out it was.”
Only a handful of people close to Woods were aware of the truth.
Immediately after that year’s Masters in April – where he finished second – Woods had undergone an operation to clear cartilage in his left knee. He had been playing for almost a year with a torn cruciate ligament and required a complete ACL procedure, but he was determined to play the major at Torrey, the course where his father had taken him as a child and where he had already won six times as a pro.
Woods took two months away from the game to recuperate, but when he resumed practice, with only two weeks to go, he heard a loud crack.
The ligaments were shredded, the shin was split, the dream was ruined – or so thought the medics and the rest of Team Tiger. Except Woods would not hear of withdrawal and, after the consultants – reluctantly – confirmed he could not do much more damage, he pressed on with mission implausible.
“I was able to convince myself that the shots were going to hurt, yeah, because my leg was busted,” Woods explained last month. “But I could make a golf swing at impact. And I just told myself to go ahead and suck it up and hit it.”
Except the shots did not always deign to go where intended. “He didn’t play well that weekend, by any stretch of the imagination,” Westwood says.
“Tiger had an unbelievable finish on Saturday [with two eagles in the last six holes] and rode his luck a bit. And then on the Sunday he started with a double bogey [his third of the week on that first hole].
“Yet the impressive thing about Tiger is when he’s not playing well, or obviously not feeling well, either, he still finds a way to get around. He somehow hung in there and gave himself a chance on the 18th.”
By then, veteran American Rocco Mediate was in the clubhouse with a one-stroke lead and the last pair on the course both required birdies to set up the 18-hole Monday play-off. With the light failing, Westwood and Woods were equidistant from the hole after three shots each.
“We both had 15-footers I suppose, although mine was a bit longer so I went first,” Westwood says. “It’s funny, but after I had failed with my effort, I never felt for a second that Tiger was going to miss his.
“Seriously, if it had been match play, I’d have almost given it to him. Why was I so sure? Well, just because he was making everything around that stage of his career, and especially that day. It was one of those classic Tiger moments.”
Westwood did not see the play-off. Somehow, he made his flight back to London on the Sunday night – “it’s amazing how quickly you can get to an airport when you’ve missed a play-off by a single shot” – but he was anything but shocked to discover Woods once again birdied the 18th to drag Mediate into sudden death before the latter crumbled on the 19th with a bogey.
While Woods announced he would take the next eight months off to recover, Westwood embarked on an unprecedented run for a non-major winner of nine top-threes in the next eight seasons. It will forever be known as Tiger’s one-legged major, but Torrey 2008 was an important part in Westwood’s story, as well.
“It really was, because that week was a catalyst for me,” Westwood says. “It made me believe I could get into contention at majors and hold my hand up, because I hadn’t really done it before. I’m proud of that streak
I put together. For a good while, I contended in almost every major I played at some stage in the tournament.
“Yeah, if things had been slightly different, if other players hadn’t played so well at the right times for them and if the cards had fallen for me instead, then I would be standing here with three, maybe four majors.
“But I’m not and I don’t beat myself up about it. Like I said about Tiger, that’s just golf, for you. You can’t take anything for granted.”
‘It’s funny, but after I had failed with my effort, I never felt for a second that he was going to miss his’