As the sun set on The 134th Open Championship at St Andrews, Tiger Woods marched to the tenth Major victory of his remarkable career, but only after a valiant European Tour challenge from Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie and José Maria Olazábal of Spain.
Woods, who began the day with a two shot lead over Olazábal and three ahead of Mongomerie, eventually triumphed by five shots, but he was put under pressure by the European duo for just over half of the fourth and final round over the Old Course.
With a fantastic Scottish crowd roaring him on, Montgomerie went to the turn in three under to get to within one shot of Woods, with Olazábal also pushing himself to within a stroke of the leader as hopes of a second successive European Tour Major Champion, following Michael Campbell's US Open victory last month, grew stronger.
But Woods did what he does best and found another gear with a birdie at the ninth to re-establish his two shot lead.
The Championship’s crucial moment then arrived as Woods and Olazábal – playing in the final match of the day – completed the 12th hole. The Spaniard, who was two behind Woods at that point, could only muster a bogey five to drop back to ten under par, while Montgomerie, who was one hole ahead of the final pairing on the 13th green, also dropped a shot to fall back to ten under.
In typical Woods fashion, the World Number One hammered home the advantage of his closest challengers dropping a stroke by birdieing the 12th to soar four shots clear – a position from which he never looked likely to relinquish his grip on the Claret Jug.
The effect of that moment was two fold. Woods got down to the serious business of closing out Major Championships, while both the players and the crowd almost sensed that the amazing American was on the march to the title, causing his closest challengers to lose momentum as The Championship entered the closing stretch.
In the end, Woods carded a two under par 70 to post a winning total of 14 under par 274, with Montgomerie’s level par 72 enough to give him outright second place on nine under par.
Olazábal eventually put together a two over 74 to tie Fred Couples of the USA in third place with five European Tour Members occupying fifth place, namely US Open Champion Michael Campbell of New Zealand, Sergio Garcia of Spain, South Africa’s Retief Goosen, Germany’s Bernhard Langer and Vijay Singh of Fiji.
Special mention should also go to Silver Medal winner Lloyd Saltman of Scotland, who posted a remarkable five under par total to be the leading Amateur player at the 2005 Championship.
But the day belonged to Woods, who was delighted to join his great idol Jack Nicklaus as the only player of the post war era to have won two Open Championships at St Andrews.
He also joins Nicklaus and Ben Hogan as the only players to win multiple Majors in the same season three times or more as well as moving to third on the all-time list of most professional Major Championships won, behind Jack Nicklaus (18) and Walter Hagen (11).
“This is just a dream come true for me,” beamed Woods, who collected a winners cheque for €1,047,362. “This is the Home of Golf, and to win The Open Championship here is as good as it gets.
“I just hit the ball so good today and I just had so much fun controlling the ball the way I did out there today. I knew that Monty and Olly had gotten to within a stroke of me, but I just felt that I was playing the same holes as them and that if they could birdie them then so could I and that would keep me ahead of the field.
“All those long hours that I put in to get to this point with Hank (Haney), this is why I did it. A lot of people criticised myself and Hank and what we where doing but this is why I did it so that I could be back here winning these Championships."
