In one of the greatest careers in the history of sports, Tiger Woods has been vexed by a few golf courses.
Valhalla Golf Club isn’t among them.
In the middle of his record-setting 2000 season, he felled Bob May in a playoff to capture the PGA Championship. He also competed in the 2014 PGA Championship at the club.
But Woods, who has 82 PGA Tour victories — included in that tally is 15 major championships, four of them being PGAs — missed two other significant events at Valhalla.
He didn’t play in the 1996 PGA Championship, which was held in early August; Woods didn’t turn professional until later that month, making his PGA Tour debut Aug. 29, 1996, at the Greater Milwaukee Open.
Then there was the 2008 Ryder Cup, remembered for the U.S. ending its three-match losing streak to Team Europe. Woods wasn’t part of the festivities, as he was home recovering from knee surgery — on the heels of his stirring U.S. Open win over Rocco Mediate in a Monday playoff that went 19 holes at Torrey Pines.
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Valhalla has welcomed the world’s best players back to the Bluegrass State for the first time in nearly a decade, as this year’s PGA Championship will tee off Thursday.
Here’s a look at his two previous tournaments at Valhalla — and how he fared:
2000 PGA Championship
Result: Win; beat May in three-hole aggregate playoff (Woods was 1 under, while May was even)
Woods entered the PGA seemingly unstoppable. He’d already romped to victories in the U.S. Open and Open Championship earlier in the summer, blitzing those fields by an astronomical 23 strokes. And he also claimed wins in four other events (the Mercedes Championship, the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, the Bay Hill Invitational and the Memorial Tournament) prior to arriving in Louisville.
He wasted no time finding his rhythm at Valhalla, sitting in a tie for first (alongside Scott Dunlap) after the first round thanks to a 6-under 66. Woods bettered Dunlap by a stroke, 67 to 68, in the second round, to take a one-shot lead into the weekend. The pair shot matching 2-under 70s in the third round, with Woods taking a one-stroke advantage into the final day.
But another man made a move on moving day: May, who carded a 6-under 66 to tie Dunlap for second at 12 under.
May refused to let Woods do what he did during his dominant wins at Pebble Beach and the Old Course at St. Andrews and turn the final round into a coronation. May, who never won on the PGA Tour, fired another 66, forcing Woods (who shot 67) to make birdies on each of his last two holes in regulation to get into a playoff.
Woods, as he did so often, came through in the clutch, making a birdie on the first extra hole — producing another one of his highlight-reel moments as he pointed at the ball and walked it into the cup — and going on to win the three-hole aggregate playoff by a shot.
Denying May helped Woods become only the second player in golf’s professional era (beginning with the formation of the Masters in 1934) to win three major championships in the same year; Ben Hogan is the other, achieving the feat in 1953.
Less than eight months later, Woods won the 2001 Masters to cap the “Tiger Slam,” making history as the first golfer to hold all four professional majors at the same time.
2014 PGA Championship
Result: Missed cut
Woods’ second Valhalla appearance wasn’t nearly as fruitful as the first.
The four-time PGA champion made just three total birdies en route to consecutive rounds of 3-over 74, missing the cut by five strokes.
Whether Woods even would play at Valhalla that year was a popular topic of conversation, as he had withdrawn during the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational the week prior, citing a back injury.
The missed cut was only his fourth in 66 major championships since turning professional in 1996.
“It was a long day,” Woods said after completing his second round. “I tried as hard as I could. That’s about all I got. Unfortunately, just didn’t play well. So consequently a pair of 74s is not very good. … The back was sore. No doubt it was sore. It went out on me on the range. I just had to play through it.”
Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
