Tiger Woods stopped dead in his tracks as fan gesture changed his view on golf

Tiger Woods recalled the moment he was stunned by the response from fans to his 2018 PGA Tour Championship triumph. The golf icon watched as police held back hoards of people who were trying to reach him.

Woods’ triumph was his first PGA Tour success in five years. He went on to win the Masters in 2019 but has largely been out of the picture at the elite level of the sport ever since, partly owing to injuries caused in a near-fatal car crash in 2021.

The 48-year-old remembers people storming down to the last hole at East Lake in 2018, hoping to get a glimpse of the legendary golfer in action. He compared the scenario to his first major, which he won in 1997.

“I’ve never seen anything like the fans and the commotion,” Woods told Golf Digest. “It was similar to the 1997 Western coming down the last hole. That was a little bit like that. But not to this fevered pitch.”

Woods observed that nobody clapped the same anymore. He believes that is because the use of mobile phones were by this point more widespread than when he was first winning majors, with people unable to clap due to holding the device in one of their hands.

He added: “You can’t clap when you’ve got a cellphone in your hand. So people yell, and they were yelling.”

As Woods turned away down the final hole, he heard the noise of police desperately holding back a stampede of people who were trying to get close to the 15-time major champion.

“All of a sudden it gets really loud behind us,” he recalled. “I look back and there are people coming under the ropes and the cops are trying to organise people so they don’t rush us.”

Meanwhile, Team USA Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley has revealed that Woods could have a role to play in helping to build a competitive team for next year’s tournament.

“I spoke to Tiger a bunch when the announcement happened,” Bradley said. “He was really, really helpful, had a lot of great advice. Again, the stress of playing in the President’s Cup and then the playoffs and everything that came with that, I’ve sort of put everything on pause for a second.

“I’ll be addressing that in the coming weeks and months, but I’ve had great conversations with Tiger. He’s a mentor for all of us and he’s got a lot of great suggestions on things we can do as a team.”