One of the most iconic clubs in golf’s history is a 35.25-inch, chrome-finished Scotty Cameron Newport 2 putter with a single dot on the topline and two distinct red dots, one on the front, the other on the back.
“Yep, it’s been pretty good to me,” Tiger Woods said of the putter he calls “Scotty.”
“Seriously, it’s been a special club.”
In tandem, the two have delivered some of the game’s most memorable putts.
Editor’s note: To see Nos. 10, 9 and 8 on the list, click here. To see Nos. 7, 6 and 5, click here. To see Nos. 4, 3 and 2, click next.
4. 2nd hole, Links Course at Fancourt Hotel and Country Club
Final day of 2003 Presidents Cup
After the U.S. stormed back from a 3-point deficit by winning seven singles matches and halving another to force a 17-17 tie, a first-of-its-kind, mano-a-mano, three-hole playoff would decide ownership of the Presidents Cup. U.S. captain Jack Nicklaus sent out Woods while Internationals captain Gary Player sent out Ernie Els for the extra holes.
Woods had beaten Els, 4 and 3, in singles that day, but as the sun began to leave South Africa, the two best players in the world met on the 18th tee for the playoff. Both parred the 18th and moved along with about 10,000 fans to the first hole. Els canned a difficult 12-footer for par while Woods knocked in a testy 4-footer to halve. Onward the playoff went to the second hole.
Woods hit his tee shot on the uphill par 3 to 90 feet, Els to 70 feet. Woods’ first putt went up a severe ridge, broke left and raced 15 feet by the hole. Els lagged his putt to six feet. As Woods studied his putt, he saw his entire team in the background. His examination of the putt wasn’t easy – it was nearly dark; the putt would go up and then move down a slope and break about a foot. And the Cup was on the line.
“That was actually one of the most nerve-wracking moments I’ve ever had in golf,” Woods said.
“It was up and over, down, sliding away,” Nicklaus said. “Couldn’t have a tougher putt, because not only do you have to play the right break, you have to have dead the right speed and just the right strength otherwise it’s not going to stay in the cup. He just played it perfectly.”
That he did. Woods punctuated his holed putt with one of the most ferocious fist pumps of his career. Els, who admitted he felt his legs shaking during the playoff, made his can’t-miss putt. Darkness was now upon the course and the captains decided not to continue the playoff the next day. And then Nicklaus and Player agreed to share the Cup for two years.
“That was one of the biggest putts I’ve ever made,” Woods said. “You let everyone down with one putt. That’s a lot of pressure.”
3. 17th hole, TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course
Third round of 2001 Players Championship
We return to the famous island green, where seven years prior Woods knocked in a 14-footer for birdie to go 1 up and won the 1994 U.S. Amateur a hole later. This time around, a lot of cash was on the line – a $6 million purse, to be exact, with $1.08 million to the winner.
Woods came into the Players off a victory in the Arnold Palmer Invitational the week before, where he nailed a 15-footer for birdie on the 72nd hole to beat Phil Mickelson by one. Well, the two were in contention again in The Players and were paired for the third round under bright skies.
At the 17th, despite the wind at his back, Woods hit 9-iron instead of wedge on the 137-yard hole, fearing he could spin the wedge back into the water. The 9-iron, however, was too much club and the ball nearly flew the green. After a large bounce, the ball came to rest on the fringe, less than three feet from the island’s edge and 60 feet from the pin located on the front of the green. And between Woods and the hole was a large ridge and a wickedly fast putting surface.
The putt went right, then broke left down the ridge, picked up speed and then nearly did a right-hand turn. NBC golf analyst Gary Koch, speaking to lead analyst Johnny Miller and millions watching on TV, described the ball’s journey with an iconic call that still rings clear to this day.
“Johnny, that’s better than most,” Koch began. “That is better than most,” he added with perfect timing. “Better than most,” he energetically said when the ball disappeared to complete the birdie. Koch, who would later say the hair on the back of his neck stood up, and Miller didn’t say a word for 45 seconds as a fist-pumping Woods roared along with the thousands of fans on hand.
“I was trying to just get the right speed,” Woods said. “I’ve had that putt before, but not quite that deep into the green. I’ve missed it to the right every time. And I know I just need the ball coming off the slope, going at the hole, because when it goes at the hole, from where I’m standing, as it catches the slope it will go straight left. And as it goes left, it just dies and comes back to the right.
“It started peeling back to the right. I kind of had a pretty good feeling I would have a chance. I just had a good feeling about it.
“It just snuck in somehow from the right.”
And Woods later snuck out a 1-shot victory for the first of his two titles in the PGA Tour’s flagship event.
2. 18th hole, Torrey Pines South Course
Final round of the 2008 U.S. Open
On a broken left leg that was also home to torn knee ligaments, Woods grimaced, limped and at times staggered through five days of golf to defeat Rocco Mediate in a 19-hole playoff to win the national championship and join Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win the career Grand Slam three times over.
“It was Superman stuff,” said Dottie Pepper, a two-time major champion and current TV analyst. “One of the greatest achievements in the history of sports.”
One of the man of steel’s biggest moments among many came on the 72nd hole, where an eagle on the 573-yard par-5 would give Woods the win and a birdie would earn him a berth in a playoff the next day.
Woods drove into a fairway bunker and then erred by laying up in some gnarly rough typical of a U.S. Open. He had 95 yards to the front of the green, 101 yards to the hole for his third shot.
“It was a 56-degree number, but I needed the spin,” Woods said. “Well, there were a couple of things that happened where I got lucky. One, that was still in the era of square grooves. And two, somebody had hit out of that same exact spot sometime that week and I was actually in a divot. I could get clean contact so I could get my sand wedge on the back of the ball, so I knew I could spin it. Stevie (Williams, his caddie) convinced me to hit 60 and I needed to hit it as hard as I could to get as much spin on the ball as I possibly could.
“And lo and behold I hit 60 up there and it spun back.”
The ball came to rest 12 feet from the cup. The putt would slide downhill from right-to-left, on speedy, bumpy Poa annua greens chewed up by foot traffic and the sun.
“I changed my stroke on that one a little bit because it was going to be so bouncy,” Woods said. “I hit up on it a little bit to try and get the ball rolling earlier. Growing up on Poa annua, that’s what I’ve always really done. I hit it more with my hands and I made sure I released it a lot. The stroke felt good. And then the ball took forever to break because it was bouncing most of the time.”
The ball caught the right edge of the hole and dropped. The earth shook as the fans thundered their approval and Woods roared to the heavens.
“I vividly remember one thing about that celebration. I remember screaming and I remember realizing I was screaming at the sky,” Woods said. “I was looking straight up. And then I put my head down quickly because I was wondering what I was doing.”
The next day Woods toppled Mediate on the 19th extra hole for his third U.S. Open title.
Coming up: The No. 1-ranked putt of Woods’ career. Why does this putt rank No. 1? Because Tiger says so.
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