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THE 61ST MASTERS

Woods Tears Up Augusta and Tears Down Barriers

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April 14, 1997, Section C, Page 1Buy Reprints
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It has been 50 years, almost to the day, since Jackie Robinson broke down the racial barriers in baseball. Now, a last vestige has fallen in golf, brought down in record fashion here in the middle of the Old South, by a young man of color.

Tiger Woods, 21, who is of African and Thai heritage, today became the youngest golfer in history to win the Masters at the Augusta National Golf Club. In doing so he shattered myths and broke records and again altered the face of the game.

Woods's final round of 69 gave him a total score of 18-under-par 270, the lowest in the 61-year history of the event, breaking the record held jointly by Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd. His 12-stroke victory over Tom Kite, 47, was the widest margin ever in the Masters -- indeed, the widest in any major championship conducted in the United States -- and it made him the first man of African heritage to win a professional major championship.

That it was accomplished in Woods's third appearance at Augusta, and his first as a pro, comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed his career. This is the most recent in a long string of firsts. He was the first golfer to win three United States Junior Amateurs and the first to win three straight United States Amateurs.

This one, though, means the most to Woods, not merely for the remarkable way in which it was accomplished, but for its social significance. A black golfer did not play in the Masters until 1975. Augusta National had no black members until 1990 when Ron Townsend, a broadcasting executive, was admitted after a controversy over the lack of black members at Shoal Creek, where the P.G.A. Championship was played that year.

By winning today, Woods finished what other people had started.

''It means so much,'' Woods said. ''I'm the first, but I wasn't the pioneer. Charlie Sifford, Lee Elder, Teddy Rhodes, those guys paved the way for me to be here. I thank them. If it wasn't for them, I might not have had the chance to play here.''

Despite a stellar record, Sifford was never invited to play in the Masters. Elder was the first black man to play the event, in 1975. Rhodes never played on the PGA Tour because of a Caucasian-only rule that was not rescinded until 1960.

This old golf course has seen displays of power and it has seen displays of finesse. But it has never seen anything like the combination of both -- and the added element of mental toughness -- that Woods showed this week. For starters, he played the par-5 holes in 13 under par for the week. That is the power. He holed more than 70 feet of par putts during the four rounds. That is the ultimate in finesse.

And after shooting a front-nine 40 on Thursday, he played the remaining 63 holes at Augusta National in 22 under par. No one has ever done that. No one has ever played the final 54 in 200 strokes. No one has ever played the middle two rounds in 131 strokes. That is mental toughness.

''Let's face it,'' said Nicklaus, who, until now, had played this course better than anyone else. ''It's his time now.''

It surely is. It was from the time he stepped to the first tee this morning, ready to face a challenge almost as difficult as playing with a two-stroke lead. The bigger the margin, the more there is to lose. Ask Greg Norman. Woods also carried the additional weight of expectations and hopes.

Lined up on the porch outside the manor clubhouse to watch him tee off were at least 20 African-American employees of the club. Farther down the hill were some of the black Augusta caddies, people like Jariah Beard, who caddied for Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979. Watching on television were Jim Thorpe and Cal Peete and Sifford and countless other black pros.

Just before Woods teed off, right after he had worked on the chipping green, Elder approached him and wished him luck.

''That really reinforced what I had to accomplish,'' Woods said. ''He was the first. It was because of people like him that I was able to turn pro, to get this opportunity.''

Woods killed the first tee shot of the day, rifling it into the wind well up the hill to the left of the bunker. He hit the green and two-putted for par. ''That was big, to settle down like that with two good shots and a solid par,'' Woods said.

He birdied the second hole and showed no sign of nerves. His lead dropped to its lowest point -- eight strokes over Costantino Rocca and Tom Watson -- when he bogeyed the fifth hole, his first bogey in 37 holes. He also bogeyed the seventh after hooking his drive into the trees, punching his approach into a bunker and failing to get up and down.

Those were the last scoring errors he made. After a birdie at the eighth hole, his lead at the turn was nine strokes, just one fewer than Seve Ballesteros had in 1980 when he ran away from the field. But Woods played the back nine much better than Ballesteros did that year.

''To me, the way Tiger played this week was really unbelievable,'' said Mark O'Meara, his neighbor and playing partner from Orlando, Fla.

The cliche about the Masters is that it is not won until the back nine on Sunday. That was not the case this year. It was won on the back nine on Thursday, when Woods changed a flaw in his swing and shot a 30 coming in that set the tone for the rest of his week.

He had that security in mind today when he birdied the 11th, nearly eagled the 13th and then made a 12-footer up the hill at 14 for birdie to get to 18 under. At the 15th, after pushing his drive way right, he had to scramble for par on the hole he dominated all week. But his seven-footer for par was nearly as impressive as his driver-wedge play on the 500-yard hole had been all week.

It secured the record, if he could just get past the last three holes. It capped the coronation, and it set up one of the loudest, most raucous final walks in the event's history.

He waded through the crowd at the last hole, looking for his ball. A quick finger on a photographer's motor drive when Woods was at the top of his backswing caused the errant drive, but it gave Woods a chance to mingle with the gallery for the first time all week.

And as he walked down the tunnel of applause, he began to slap palms with the gallery, first one fan and then another, until soon they were all extending their hands toward his.

It was quite a difference from the first time Woods came here. According to a coming biography of Woods titled ''Tiger,'' hate mail arrived at the clubhouse and one letter in particular said to him, ''Just what we don't need, another nigger in sports.''

Woods kept that letter. And now it serves as a symbol of what he has overcome here and the way he overcame it. He was not a pioneer, but he was the first, and a most impressive first at that.

Think about it. Tiger Woods is every bit as dominating as a professional as he was as an amateur. The $486,000 he won here gives him $1,756,944 in earnings since he turned pro Aug. 27. The last time a golfer won a major championship by a 12-stroke margin was in 1870 when Young Tom Morris whipped David Strath and Bob Kirk in the British Open at Prestwick by 12. Willie Smith's 11-stroke victory in the 1899 United States Open at Baltimore Country Club has been erased.

A fresh wind has blown away some musty records and a new age has truly dawned in golf.

''Tiger Woods isn't like any other golfer,'' Elder said. ''Him winning this major event like this, I think it's just like what Jackie Robinson did.''

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: Woods Tears Up Augusta and Tears Down Barriers. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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