Tiger Woods never set out to break Jack Nicklaus’s record of major championship victories. That narrative certainly took off as he began racking up titles, and it’s one he never shied away from as the green jackets and Claret Jugs accumulated. But in the early days, he wasn’t focusing on the ultimate hardware.
Woods kept a list of Nicklaus’s accomplishments by age, and they didn’t involve majors. It was about breaking 80 for the first time or breaking 70 or winning a state amateur or the U.S. Amateur or some other feat. Tiger checked those off ahead of Jack’s schedule. “The guy’s the best out there and the best of all time,” Woods told Time in 2015. “If I can beat each age that he did it, then I have a chance at being the best.”
Age 50 was never on the list. Woods hits that golden number on Dec. 30, and his pursuit of the Golden Bear was long ago derailed by various injuries. But it’s still worth taking a pause to wonder what might have been.
It was approximately 10 years ago when Woods explained that winning 19 majors—and thus surpassing Nicklaus—was not one of his childhood goals. And it was also then that Woods first expressed true doubt concerning his golf future. He was about to turn 40 and he’d already endured three microdiscectomies on his lower lumbar spine region, turning an otherwise obscure procedure into a word that golf writers could spell as easily as Augusta.
“I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Woods said at a December 2015 press conference in the Bahamas, where he was hosting his year-end tournament but could barely walk due to the third microdiscectomy in 18 months. “There’s really nothing I can look forward to, nothing I can build towards.”
Woods made a couple of aborted comebacks but didn’t play in a major for more than two years. After a pain-filled visit to the 2017 Masters champions dinner, he took a clandestine trip to London seeking answers. An ensuing Hail Mary spinal fusion gave him relief and led to some amazing golf.
But since then … a knee surgery. Three more back procedures. A horrific car crash that led to untold operations. An Achilles injury that knocked him out of competitive golf in 2025. A recent disk replacement surgery that puts his future in the game in peril.
It’s been a hell of a 10 years.
All of which tends to cloud what has occurred over the course of his iconic career. And it can really obscure what he did over a two-year period of brilliance amid all the turmoil.
Typically cited as Woods’s most impressive accomplishments are his 12-shot victory at his first Masters as a pro in 1997, his 15-shot win at the 2000 U.S. Open, his four straight major titles in 2000–01 (not to mention a Players Championship mixed in) plus the 10 years of five victories or more, the Player of the Year Awards and Vardon Trophies for low scoring average, the 142 consecutive made cuts on the PGA Tour, the 41 victories on the European Tour ... the accolades go on and on, all the way to tying Sam Snead for the most victories in PGA Tour history with 82.
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But don’t sleep on 2018–19, when Woods did things that were unlike his previous period of dominance. He was 42 years old, coming off a serious surgery that fused his spine, which meant he couldn’t swing a golf club for six months. Before embarking on that comeback, he was ranked 1,199th in the Official World Golf Ranking.
In 2018, Woods played 19 worldwide events, his most in any year since 2009. He had seven top-10 finishes including a tie for sixth at the British Open and a second at the PGA Championship. He won his 80th career PGA Tour event at the Tour Championship—all barely a year after major back surgery. By the end of the season, he had risen to 13th in the world.
The good play continued into the following year. In five starts prior to the Masters, Woods had four top-20 finishes and defeated Rory McIlroy in the round of 16 of the WGC-Match Play Championship. That set up his stirring Masters victory, where for the first time in his career, he came from behind after 54 holes to win his fifth green jacket and his 15th major overall. At 43, he was the second oldest to win the tournament—behind Nicklaus, who captured his 18th major title at Augusta National at age 46.
Woods tied for ninth at the Memorial Tournament later that spring but then mostly struggled. He missed the cut at two major championships. He didn’t make it back to defend his Tour Championship title, failing to qualify for the field. As it turned out, his left knee—which had been surgically repaired four times—was bothering him. Another operation in August, this time to repair cartilage damage. And then, another improbable victory, in Chiba, Japan, where he opened the ZOZO Championship that October with three straight bogeys but went on to win by three shots over local favorite Hideki Matsuyama.
That was Woods’s 82nd career PGA Tour win—nine more than Nicklaus. He followed it with a stint as a playing captain for the victorious U.S. Presidents Cup team in Melbourne, Australia, where he went 3–0. He had risen to sixth in the world.
And then COVID-19 … and inactivity … and another back procedure … and the horrific car crash of February 2021. He’s played just 11 worldwide events since then, his left leg damaged severely enough that walking remains difficult.
There have been stops and starts along the way, guarded optimism, thoughts of senior golf, but barely a word from Woods in 2025. If he makes it to the Masters in April without playing another tournament, the last of his world ranking points will have dropped, leaving him at zero.
All of that paints a rather bleak picture, one framed by the numerous injuries and surgeries that never impacted Nicklaus, who played 146 consecutive major championships from 1962 through 1998. Woods has yet to play his 90th as a pro.
But he won 15 of them, more than 16%, a rate that is unprecedented. And along the way, he produced a period of golf befitting his last Sports Illustrated cover in April 2019 that is both overshadowed and underappreciated.
Tiger stats that blow our minds
- Had a bounce-back percentage of 36.51% in 2000. This measures the rate at which a player makes a birdie or better immediately following a bogey or worse. This was the best single-season bounce-back percentage over the past 40 years, with Scottie Scheffler’s 2025 season (36.50%) being the second-best in that timeframe.
- Missed three putts from inside 3 feet, out of 1,543 attempts, from 2003 through 2005.
- Only player to have won the U.S. Junior Amateur, U.S. Amateur, and U.S. Open in his career, winning each tournament three times.
- During the 2000-01 seasons (the period of the Tiger Slam), beat the field average by 5.4 strokes per round. It was a total of 86 strokes over 16 rounds.
- Had just one score worse than 73 during the 2000 PGA Tour season, a 75 at the Masters when the scoring average was 75.59 during the first round.
- Won 18 of 34 tournaments worldwide from May 1999 to the end of 2000, including seven wins by four or more strokes. Only four finishes were outside of the top 10.
- Only player in last 65 years to win five consecutive PGA Tour starts, something he accomplished three different times, winning seven, six and five starts, respectively.
- Winner of 41 European Tour events, the third-most all-time, despite never being a member of the DP World Tour, as it is now called.
- Won seven majors by three shots or more, the most of all time.
- Won in his 100th (2000 WGC-NEC Invitational), 200th (2006 Buick Invitational) and 300th (2013 Players Championship) official PGA Tour starts.
- Had eight PGA Tour seasons where he beat the field average by 2.6 shots, a feat accomplished eight times since 1983—all by Woods.
- Holds the PGA Tour record for consecutive rounds at par or better at 52, stretching from the 2000 Byron Nelson Classic to the 2001 Phoenix Open.
- Was 134 under par from 1997 through 2009 in the majors, the only player under par during that period with more than four rounds played. Among those with 70 or more rounds during that time, Woods was 233 shots better than anyone else. Phil Mickelson was 99 over par.
- Twice won the same PGA Tour event four years in a row, at the Buick Invitational (2005-08) and the Arnold Palmer Invitational (2000-03).
- Won 25 of 25 times when having a three-shot lead or more entering final round of a PGA Tour event.
- Only current player age 50 or younger with 30 or more PGA Tour wins. He won his 30th title 23 years ago at Bay Hill.
- Holds record for most consecutive cuts made on the PGA Tour with 142, from 1998 to 2005. Xander Schauffele recently became the first player to get halfway to Woods’s mark.
- Led PGA Tour money list three different times where he earned more than the second and third places combined, in 1999, 2000, 2007.
- Won 32 PGA Tour events from 1999 through 2002—no other player won more than eight times in that period.
- Won 10 majors before his 30th birthday; Jack Nicklaus is the only other to have won at least five before turning 30: Nicklaus won seven.
- Has 15 PGA Tour wins, including four majors, in the month of August alone.
- Across his 82 PGA Tour wins, competitors were born from a span of 1922 (Doug Ford, 1997 Masters) to 1999 (Devon Bling, 2019 ZOZO Championship.)
- From 1999 Deutsche Bank Championship through the 2001 Memorial, the record: 46 starts, 23 wins, five major wins including four in a row, 11 wins by three shots or more, six finishes outside top 10.
- Since 1900, only player to win a major by 10 shots or more—12 at the 1997 Masters, 15 at the 2000 U.S. Open.
- Held the No. 1 spot in the Official World Golf Ranking for 683 weeks.
- Holds the longest stretch of consecutive weeks at No. 1 at 281 and was also No. 1 for 264 straight weeks. The 683 weeks is equivalent to 11 years—meaning Scottie Scheffler would need to be atop the OWGR into 2035 to match it.
- Completed the career Grand Slam in just three years and at the time was just the fifth to do so. He won each of the four majors a minimum of three times.
- Won each of the majors in which Jack Nicklaus played for the last time: 2000 U.S. Open, 2000 PGA, 2005 Masters, 2005 British Open.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Tiger Woods at 50: Looking Back on a Half Century of Dominance.
