Tiger Woods Returns to Waste Management Phoenix Open a Changed Man
A lot can happen in 14 years.
That's how long it has been since Tiger Woods last teed it up at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. He was 25 years old and fresh off winning the last three major tournaments of 2000. A few months later, he would win the Masters, completing the Tiger Slam.
Woods had his reasons for skipping the tournament known as golf's biggest (and only) party. Unlike most golfers on the PGA Tour, Tiger had the luxury of picking and choosing which events he would enter. He usually started his year at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines—a wise choice considering he has won that event seven times in his career.
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But maybe the most important reason Woods took his hiatus from the Phoenix Open had to do with his safety. Police found a handgun on a heckler who was harassing Woods at the event in 1999.
Hole No. 16 at the TPC of Scottsdale is one of the most famous holes in all of golf, and in 1997, it just so happened to be the spot where Woods announced his arrival with this famous hole-in-one:
This weekend, No. 16—with its stadium-style seating, looking like Fenway Park was plopped onto a championship golf course—will look nothing like it does in the video above, and neither will Woods. No longer the fist-pumping, roof-raising 22-year-old, the Tiger you'll see this weekend is 39 years old, a father of two and coming off microdiscectomy back surgery that limited him to just seven events in 2014.
Although 2014 may have been a year to forget for Woods, his time between appearances at the Phoenix Open also included his prime. During a dominating stretch, he won 55 events, earned eight PGA Tour Player of the Year Awards and led the tour in earnings seven times, winning a total of $89 million along the way in prize money.
Tiger hit his peak during this run.
His stiffest competition throughout the past 14 years has come from Phil Mickelson. Lefty—who played his college golf at Arizona State University in nearby Tempe—has won the Phoenix Open three times, most recently in 2013 with a record-tying 28-under par. A dive into the numbers, however, shows a pretty one-sided rivalry between the two since 2001:
| Woods | Mickelson | |
| Events | 212 | 301 |
| Wins | 55 | 25 |
| Prize Money | $89,108,964 | $61,910,566 |
| Majors Won | 9 | 5 |
| Missed Cuts | 10 | 33 |
Remarkably, Woods has only missed the cut 10 times in 212 official PGA Tour events since playing in the 2001 Phoenix Open. Mickelson has missed the cut 10 times since 2011.
Woods' accomplishments on the golf course have coincided with an array of changes in personnel, both in his professional career and his personal life. Much was made of Woods' highly publicized infidelity scandal in 2009 and the effect it has had on his game (he hasn't won a major since the U.S. Open in 2008), but he has since settled down with Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn.
Tiger is now on his third different caddy since 2001. He fired longtime caddy Steve Williams in 2011. He had the most success of his career with Williams on his bag but enjoyed a resurgence in 2013 with Joe LaCava, winning five events and finishing second in the FedEx Cup standings. Tiger's friend Bryon Bell served as a bridge between the two.
Woods has also had his share of swing coaches over the last 14 years—four of them, to be exact. World-renowned swing coach Butch Harmon—now with Mickelson—was with Woods until 2004. Tiger didn't miss a beat after switching to Hank Haney, but their partnership ended when Haney resigned in 2010. Woods then sought the services of Sean Foley. It was thought that Tiger's swing with Foley made him too susceptible to injury, and the two parted ways in August 2014.
Enter Chris Como. He and Woods have gone back to the basics, going so far as to watch old VHS tapes of the golfer's swing. And it's working, especially with his driver, a club that has given Woods fits the past few years.
"My driving has come around a lot faster," Woods said after his practice round on Tuesday, per Scott Bordow of The Arizona Republic. "I'm a lot longer than I thought I could ever be again. My (swing) speed is way back up and that's fun. I'm touching numbers that I did 15 years ago, so that's cool."
Fifteen years ago? I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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