By the time the 2025 Masters rolls around it will be 20 years since Tiger Woods played one of the most iconic shots around Augusta National.
At the 16th hole, Woods, at the time an eight-time Major winner but without a victory in his last 10, somehow calculated both the slope and break to make an unfathomable birdie two from the back of the green.
It led to one of the game’s most memorable pieces of commentary – ‘Oh my goodness…oh wow! In your life have you seen anything like that?’ – as Verne Lundquist, who called his final Masters in 2024, added the perfect accompaniment to the perfect shot.
Woods led Chris DiMarco by two and, despite back-to-back bogeys, he would slip into a fourth Green Jacket later that evening.
But, at the start of the week, Woods would make a stuttering start and hit two shots that are never recalled and more resembled a high-handicapper than the greatest player on the planet.
Billy Foster first caddied at Augusta in 1991, alongside none other than Seve Ballesteros, and he’s missed three Masters since. By 2005 he was on Darren Clarke’s bag and the two of them were paired with Woods.
The then World No.2, who had now been surpassed by Vijay Singh on the rankings, began his week with a very precise shot, striking the pin with his approach, only to make an opening bogey.
“The pin was front left and he hit it on the fly and it spun into the front left trap. Steve Williams said that he had hit the pin on the same hole in the last round of the 2004 Masters so he had done it twice on the trot,” explains Foster.
But it was on the next hole where Woods hit one of the strangest shots that he will ever have hit on the Georgia property.
Billy Foster and Darren Clarke at the 2005 Masters
(Image credit: Getty Images)
‘I could have laid in his divot’
“He teed off and he hit that far behind the ball I reckon I could have laid in his divot and put a crucifix behind my head. He must have hit 18 inches behind the shot, he nearly fresh aired it, it came off the heel, nearly hit his left foot and it bobbled into the crowd, literally 50-70 yards off the tee and it finished by the 8th green.
“Then he hit a 3-iron to where his tee shot should be, right at the bunker, down in the trees in a ditch. He dropped it out for three, hit a 2-iron on the green and it ran round to the…
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