As Tiger Woods turns 50 today, he can reflect on an incredible career which has seen him go from child prodigy to one of the biggest names in sport and bounce back from dramatic lows to claim a memorable 15th major title that many thought would never come.

The pinnacle of his trophy-laden career came over 11 months between 2000 and 2001 when he was unbeatable at major championships, completing the ‘Tiger Slam’ by holding all four titles at the same time.

While he remains three short of Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major wins, there is a strong argument that Woods is golf’s ‘greatest of all time’.

His rise to the top started from a very young age.

Woods was imitating his father’s swing aged just six months and appeared on television with Bob Hope before his third birthday and soon after shot 48 for nine holes.

Amateur success turned seamlessly into professional glory and Woods went on to dominate the game in incredible fashion.

In 1997 aged 21, he won the Masters – his first major – finishing 12 shots strokes ahead of runner-up Tom Kite. The margin of victory is the largest in the tournament’s history.

He would win 54 times between 1999 and 2006 and claimed the US Open in 2008 despite suffering a double stress fracture and knee injury which prompted season-ending surgery.

But after such a momentous rise, the fall from grace was equally incredible, a car crash near his home in November 2009 eventually leading to admissions of infidelity and Woods taking an “indefinite break” from golf.

Woods returned to action with a tie for fourth at the 2010 Masters but failed to win that season for the first time since turning professional.


Tiger Woods receives the green jacket from Nick Faldo in 1997

Something approaching normal service resumed the following two years but, after winning five times in 2013, Woods started just 24 events in the next four years as the pain from his back often left him grimacing or having to withdraw from events entirely.

In 2017, Woods underwent spinal fusion surgery. The following month, with five prescription drugs in his system, he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence when he was found asleep at the wheel of his car and later pleaded guilty to reckless driving.

Back on the PGA Tour in 2018, Woods missed the cut in his second event but crucially felt fit enough to add tournaments to his schedule and a return to form soon followed, most notably when he led the Open Championship with eight holes to play and then finished runner-up in the US PGA before winning the Tour Championship in September.

Exhausted by his performance in Atlanta, Woods lost all four of his matches at the following week’s Ryder Cup in Paris, but recovered sufficiently to play five events at the start of 2019 before arriving at Augusta for the 83rd Masters.

Starting the final round two shots off the lead, Woods held his nerve on a chaotic final day to win his 15th major title, and first in 11 years, prompting many to label it the greatest comeback in sport.

Tiger in numbers

15 – major championships won, second only to Jack Nicklaus (18) on the all-time list.
5 – Masters titles, also second behind Nicklaus’ six.
3 – Woods has won four US PGA Championship titles and the Open Championship and US Open three times each, meaning he is a career Grand Slam winner three times over. That achievement is matched by Nicklaus – the pair are the only players to win each major multiple times, and two of only six to complete a career slam.
4 – Woods held all four majors simultaneously after adding the 2001 Masters to his US Open, Open and US PGA wins the previous year. He is the only man to achieve that feat, which became known as the ‘Tiger Slam’.
82 – PGA Tour wins in Woods’ career, level with Sam Snead for the most ever with Nicklaus third on 73. Woods has 110 wins across all tours.
120,999,166 – career earnings in US dollars from PGA Tour events, an all-time record. Rory McIlroy sits in second place, just over $13m dollars behind Woods, with Scottie Scheffler on the verge of becoming the third $100m earner.
683 – weeks spent at world number one, including 264 in succession from August 1999 to September 2004 – both all-time records.
15 – Woods’ 15-stroke margin of victory at the 2000 US Open, when he was the only player under par, remains a major championship record. He also won the 1997 Masters by 12 and is the only player since 1899 with a double-figure winning margin in a major.
61 – Woods’ lowest competitive round, achieved on four separate occasions. His best in a major is 63, in the second round as he won the 2007 US PGA.
3 – Woods has hit three hole-in-ones in his PGA Tour career, at the 1996 Greater Milwaukee Open, 1997 Phoenix Open, and 1998 Sprint International, and is reported to have made 20 in his life.
66 – consecutive rounds of par or better from the 2000 GTE Byron Nelson Classic to the 2001 Phoenix Open, including a record 52 in PGA Tour events.
7 – consecutive wins in PGA events entered from the 2006 Open Championship to the 2007 Buick Invitational. Only Byron Nelson has a longer winning streak, 11 events in 1945.
39 – Woods has only missed the cut in 39 of his 382 PGA Tour events, less than half of his win total.
1 – Woods has lost only one of his 12 career play-offs, to Billy Mayfair at the 1998 Nissan Open.
91 – holes played by Woods to win the 2008 US Open, where he saw off Rocco Mediate in an 18-hole play-off which needed a sudden-death 19th hole – while Woods was playing with a torn ACL and a double stress fracture of his left tibia.