Tiger Woods, 29, won his fourth green jacket on the first hole of a playoff with Chris DiMarco. Rain was a factor the whole week, and delayed much of the play.[1] The purse was $7.0 million with a winner's share of $1.26 million.[2] It was the ninth of Woods' fifteen major championships.
Sixty-eight players were on the course when darkness suspended the first round since the start of the round was delayed by over five hours due to heavy morning rain. The round was completed Friday morning. Chris DiMarco shot a five-under 67 to take the first round lead. Vijay Singh and Luke Donald were at 68, one stroke behind in second. Tiger Woods struggled through much of his round ending at two over par. After the round, Woods was questioned by rules officials for an illegal putting stance on the 14th before getting the all-clear. In his final appearance, Billy Casper shot the worst round in Masters history on Thursday, a triple-digit 106 (+34), but the round was unofficial because he withdrew.[3][5]
Three-time champion Nick Faldo withdrew while playing the ninth hole due to back spasms.[6]
Rain suspended play for much of the day and the second round spilled into Saturday. Chris DiMarco posted another five-under 67 to take a four-stroke lead at the halfway point. Thomas Bjørn also shot a 67 to take second place by himself at −6. Tiger Woods recovered from his poor first round with a six-under 66, six strokes back in third place.
Chris DiMarco continued his hot ways shooting a three-under 33 on the front nine before play was suspended due to darkness. His −13 through 45 holes was four strokes better than Tiger Woods, who shot a five-under 31 on the first nine holes. Thomas Bjørn stayed in contention with a two-under 34 for nine holes and was −8 for the championship.
Tiger Woods resumed play on Sunday morning on the back nine and made four consecutive birdies to card a 7-under 65 and take the 54-hole lead. Dating back to play on Saturday, Woods birdied seven straight holes in the third round, tying a record by Steve Pate. Chris DiMarco struggled in with a 41 (+5) back nine for a third round 74 (+2), losing seven shots to Woods in the final nine holes. DiMarco's troubles began when his second shot at the 10th went into a bush and was unplayable. After a drop, he chipped onto the green and two-putted for the double bogey, which ended a streak of 44 holes at par or better.
Cumulative tournament scores, relative to par
Source:[7]
Final round
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Summary
A thrilling final round came down to a two-man duel between Tiger Woods and Chris DiMarco. DiMarco narrowed the three shot lead to one by the 11th with a second birdie in three holes after Woods had dropped a shot at the 10th. The lead stretched back to two when DiMarco bogeyed the 12th at the heart of Amen Corner, but a stunning approach on 14 set up a birdie for DiMarco and cut the gap back to one.
Both players birdied 15 and set up a dramatic and memorable 16th hole. With DiMarco sitting comfortably in the center of the green Woods pulled his tee shot just off the green; with about 50 feet (15 m) between him and the hole, and considering the difficulty of the lie, co-commentator Lanny Wadkins remarked that "this is one of the toughest pitches on the entire place here", and that "there's a good chance he doesn't get this inside DiMarco's ball", who had left himself a good 20 feet (6 m) away. Aiming at least 20 feet (6 m) to the left of the pin and intending to use the sloping green to run the ball towards the hole, Woods proceeded to play what was voted in 2019 as the greatest shot in Masters history.[8] The ball crept towards the hole and appeared to stop on the lip of the hole before toppling in for a dramatic birdie, prompting lead commentator Verne Lundquist to give the now iconic piece of commentary: "Well... here it comes... Oh, my goodness... OH, WOW! In your life have you seen anything like that!?". DiMarco missed his birdie putt and the lead grew back to two with just two to play. However, Woods pushed his drive on 17 leading to a bogey, cutting the lead to one as they went to the 72nd hole.
Woods' approach on 18 ended up in the greenside bunker while DiMarco ended up just short of the green. DiMarco's chip for birdie hit the pin and rebounded ten feet away when it could easily have jammed in the hole. Woods hit his chip to 14 feet (4 m), but missed his par putt to win. DiMarco calmly sank a ten-foot (3 m) putt to force a playoff.
Retief Goosen had the round of the day, firing a five under 67 which was the only round better than DiMarco's 68.
The previous six sudden-death playoffs (going back to 1979) at Augusta began at the 10th hole; this was the first to start at the 18th hole,[9] where both put their drives in the fairway. DiMarco hit his approach to the very front section of the green and the ball backed off the green a bit, ending up in almost the exact spot he was at the end of regulation. Woods knocked his approach to 15 feet (4.6 m) past the flag. DiMarco then chipped up to around a foot and tapped in for par. After taking a long time to study the putt, Woods buried his birdie putt to win his fourth green jacket and ninth major title. It was the second consecutive major that DiMarco lost in a playoff following his loss in the PGA Championship in 2004 to Vijay Singh.
"Here it comes ... Oh, my goodness! ... OH, WOW! IN YOUR LIFE, have you seen anything like that?!" - CBS's Verne Lundquist's famous call of Tiger Woods' chip-in on the 16th hole.
"Chris is a tough competitor and a fighter. He's never going to back off and he proved that again." - Tiger Woods on the gutsy final round of runner-up Chris DiMarco.
""I was just trying to throw the ball up there on the hill and let it feed down there and hopefully have a makeable putt. All of a sudden, it looked really good, and it looked like how could it not go in, and how did it not go in, and all of a sudden it went in." - Tiger Woods on his remarkable chip on 16.
"I went out and shot 68 around here on Sunday, which is a very good round, and 12-under is usually good enough to win. It was just that I was playing against Tiger Woods." - Chris DiMarco on his runner-up finish.
"I would let it hurt if I gave it away but I didn't. I really didn't." - Chris DiMarco
"You know I played him as hard as I could down the stretch, birdieing a bunch of holes coming down the back nine and putting it on him really. And since I put that behind me and went out and put a good number on the back nine, I feel very good." - Chris DiMarco on his final round.
"That was a hard-fought week with the rain delays, I didn't get off to the greatest of starts." - Tiger Woods on the long week of golf.
Tiger Woods
