Tiger Woods intentionally aims for fans at Masters

Tiger Woods is known to aim at fans at the par-5 second hole at Augusta National Golf Club. 

Okay, settle down. It’s not anywhere near as egregious as it sounds. When Tiger Woods plays the second hole, par-5 at Augusta National he aims at fans, but not for the purpose of trying to hit them.

It is instead a tactical procedure aimed at besting the hole.

We know he does this because of comments made by Notah Begay, a fellow Stanford Cardinal alum, whom Woods took upon himself to mentor when he hit the PGA Tour.

Begay, now an analyst for the Golf Channel, told the story this way:

"“Tiger Woods told me how to play the second [hole] … and he learned from Ray Floyd in the back-right hole location, you land the ball hole-high and let it bounce into the gallery and it hits the gallery in their feet and it stops there and you chip back and you putt it in [for birdie]. So that’s how Ray Floyd played that hole location. That’s how Tiger told me to play that hole location.”“Tiger Woods told me how to play the second [hole] … and he learned from Ray Floyd in the back-right hole location, you land the ball hole-high and let it bounce into the gallery and it hits the gallery in their feet and it stops there and you chip back and you putt it in [for birdie]. So that’s how Ray Floyd played that hole location. That’s how Tiger told me to play that hole location.”"

That hole location, however, is not one which is yet to be used in this year’s Masters tournament. So it would likely not have been helpful for Woods or other players thus far this week.

Then again, it was never really helpful for Begay anyway.

“When I did it, the gallery moved out of the way and didn’t take one for the team. My ball ended up going about 20 yards over that green and I ended up having a really hard chip coming back to the hole.”

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To his credit, Tiger Woods has played the Augusta course relatively well so far this week, shooting 142 (-2) including a 69 (-3) on Friday to place himself firmly inside the cut-line (top-50 plus ties).

Woods will be playing Saturday with Sergio Garcia–the duo was once expected to produce the next great rivalry in golf.

The two were slated to play each other essentially one-on-one in “The Battle of Bighorn” on August 28, 2000. The made-for-tv event was won by the Spaniard, and celebrated (rather mildly) in typical Sergio Garcia fashion. From there, it turned into a not so friendly rivalary, as it is noted that Woods began to “hate” Garcia.

The two have traded barbs at each other publicly through different forms of media.

There is no love lost between the two. Yet they will play with one another on Saturday in front of a watching world. Even if Woods’ approach at the second hole were to hit the fans, he’d probably change that in this round, instead trying to find a way to hit Garcia.

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