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This article appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of Champion magazine.

A memorable 80 in ’96

By Greg Johnson
NCAA.org

It’s almost unfathomable for a golfer to shoot an 80 in the final round and still win a major championship – especially if that golfer’s name is Tiger Woods.

But that’s what happened 15 years ago when the sophomore superstar from Stanford shot four times his age and still grabbed medalist honors at the 1996 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships.

To be sure, Woods wasn’t the only participant to be challenged. The Honors Course, a Pete Dye layout located in Ooltewah, Tenn. (just north of Chattanooga), took a big bite out of the field in the last round of the championship. In the first three days of the tournament, Woods fired a 69, a course-record 67 and another 69 to take a daunting nine-stroke lead over Arizona’s Rory Sabbatini heading into the final day.

Woods triple-bogeyed the ninth hole after hitting a chip too hard that rolled into a greenside lake. Four consecutive bogeys followed for Woods, who despite shooting 8-over par for the round still was the only player under par for the tournament. He finished four shots clear of Sabbatini, who shot a 75 on the last day.

After the round, Woods said, “It doesn’t feel like I shot 80. I mean, it’s not like I gave up and shot an 80. I really dug deep, and I am pleased with the result.”

The Honors Course hosted the 2010 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships, too, but it had a different set-up.

“The course wasn’t nearly as severe as it was in 1996,” said John Reis, who was one of the rules officials both times the Honors Course hosted the event. “If you missed the fairway, your ball was in very high and thick grass. If you didn’t see exactly where it went in, chances were you weren’t going to find it.”

Reis also remembers the buzz about Woods.

“There were more people than we normally get for a Division I golf championship, just because of the curiosity factor,” Reis said. “Tiger had won a couple of U.S. Amateurs at that point, but he was still relatively new to the golfing and viewing publics.”

Tom Meeks, who retired as the senior director of rules and competitions for the United States Golf Association in 2005, set the hole locations for the 1996 tournament. He said the goal is to always challenge the players, but as fairly as possible. 

“But you have to set it up hard, or they will eat it up,” Meeks said. “You try to balance the difficulty. We never moved the tees more than five yards. With the hole locations, you never try to have the most difficult locations on one day. You try to distribute them evenly throughout the tournament.”

For Woods, it was a memorable day to add to his long list of accomplishments in golf. Later that year, he became the only person to win three straight U.S. Amateur titles. He also won three consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur championships from 1991 to 1993. To date, he has won 14 major championships as a professional.