Tiger Woods, Masters Champion, 2019.

TIGER WOODS IS WEARING THE GREEN JACKET. At 2:15 PM on April 14, 2019, Tiger Woods proved definitively that he is the greatest golfer ever to play the game. • Here is how Fox News's Samuel Chamberlain expressed it : "It was a Sunday unlike any other at this tradition unlike any other. But as he had on four previous Sunday afternoons at Augusta National Golf Club, Tiger Woods stood alone at the top. Woods, 43, shot a 2-under par 70 to win his first green jacket since 2005 and his first major since the 2008 US Open. He defeated Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffle, and Brooks Koepeka by one stroke, but that does not begin to tell the story of a dramatic Sunday that ended approximately four-and-a-half hours early after Sunday's tee times were moved ahead due to the threat of severe weather. Woods began the day in a tie for second with Tony Finau, two shots back of Francesco Molinari, the defending British Open champion with nerves so steady that entering Sunday, the Italian had not bogeyed any hole since the 11th on Thursday. But Molinari's nerves and shotmaking skills failed him on the back nine Sunday. Holding a two-shot lead on the 12th teen, Molinari watched helplessly as his tee shot rolled off the green and into Rae's Creek. He salvaged a bogey to remain in contention, but the veneer of invincibility had cracked. If what happened at 12 was tragedy, what happened to Molinari at 15 was a farce. Playing conservatively to avoid the water on the par-5, Molinari found himself with what should have been a simple third shot onto the green. But he hit his wedge shot fat, popping it up into the air, off a nearby tree and into the water. He double-bogeyed the hole to drop out of a share of the lead. On the same hole, Woods made a conventional birdie-4 to take the outright lead for the first time. He secured his advantage at the par-3 16 by sticking an 8-iron within 2 feet of the cup for another birdie and a two-stroke lead. That birdie, along with a missed birdie by Koepka on 18, gave Tiger the cushion he needed to finish with a bogey-5 and secure his fifth green jacket and 15th major, trailing only the great Jack Nicklaus in both categories." • The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, founded in 1758, is the oldest and most prestigious golf club in the world. It is based in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, and is regarded as the worldwide "Home of Golf." But, it was with his win in 1961 and his repeat in 1962 that Arnie Palmer put the British Open -- the Open is what the British call it -- on the international golf map. If the game of golf was created and its rules are managed from St. Andrews, that does not detract from the fact that modern golf is American. Its Founder-Father is Arnold Palmer, and the National Golf Course at Augusta, Georgia, is its Hallowed Ground. • On Sunday, Tiger Woods proved it again. There is simply nothing like the back nine on Sunday at The Masters -- nothing anywhere in the world of golf. It is the true golf test of nerve and skill. Tiger didn't gallop over the back nine Sunday, BUT he didn't collapse at any point -- as every other golfer on the course did. Augusta showed once again that to win The Masters, you must win the back nine on Sunday, not by pushing or forcing it but by playing it on its own terms, as the thing of beauty that it is. • As for Tiger Woods -- yes, he has had great social and psychological black holes and physical problems that most golfers would not have overcome. He said on Sunday, "I'm just very lucky to be playing." Lucky, and incredibly determined to do whatever it took, including multiple surgeries and years of therapy, to get his back into shape for swinging a golf club. Many experts said he was never going to make it, that he was to old, too battered physically, too lacking in motivation. He proved them all wrong today. Tiger showed the consummate talent and fierce determination to win that only he possesses. • And, he had one advantage that nobody else on the pro tour has earned since Arnie Palmer -- the crowd. They were with him from Thursday, cheering every putt and many fairway shots. And, when Sunday rolled around, you could feel the crowds grow and breathe as if they were a living extension of Tiger, holding their collective breath and remaining motionless while he hit each shot, only to explode in cheers as it fell where it should. • He didn't disappoint them. • Tiger Woods, Masters Champion, 2019.