AUGUSTA, Ga. — The grill room inside the Augusta National clubhouse was standing-room-only Sunday afternoon. Everyone’s attention was dialed in on two television…
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The grill room inside the Augusta National clubhouse was standing-room-only Sunday afternoon.
Everyone’s attention was dialed in on two television sets in separate corners of the room, focused on every move Tiger Woods was making on the back nine in what was unfolding into one of the most memorable conclusions in Masters history.
Underneath one of the TVs sat Woods’ family. His mother, Tida, nervously sipped tea. His two children, son Charlie and daughter Sam, obliviously noshed on candy. Woods’ girlfriend, Erica Herman, was so fidgety that Justin Thomas’ mother, Jani, sat down next to her and clutched Herman’s right hand as if she were about to give birth.
History hung heavily in the air inside that grill room and around the Augusta National grounds and it certainly wasn’t lost on Woods’ loved ones who are more keenly aware than anyone about the struggle he’d endured to get to this place.
This place: A 15th career major championship, a fifth career green jacket, the end of an 11-year drought without a major and 14 years removed from his last Masters victory.
Something many — including Woods himself — believed would never happen again happened on Sunday at Augusta.
Until Sunday.
“Just unreal,’’ Woods said after overtaking 54-hole leader Francesco Molinari with a frenetic final-round 70 that got him to 13-under par for the week, one better than Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Xander Schauffele, and two better than Molinari, who closed with a 74, Jason Day, Webb Simpson and Tony Finau.
