The highlight of this tournament was Tiger's triumphant walk up the 18th fairway on Sunday. He had hit his tee shot, and was starting to walk to the green. He had the lead in hand, and the massive gallery following Tiger burst through the lines and the course marshals, and followed Tiger, like he was some pied piper, or golf messiah. (Although British Open winners have been known to have the gallery follow them up the 18th fairway on Sunday.)
David J. Resac (dresac@indiana.edu) was there the whole day, and was part of the crowd that marched with Tiger to his fourth victory of the year. Here's his eyewitness account.
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:55:42 EDT From: David Resac To: rgu@world.std.com Subject: Re: Tiger Woods-Western Open -Reply My brother and I followed Tiger for the entire round. We knew it would be crazy, but in the Midwest you don't get the chance to see him too often. You ask how close we were to Tiger, close enough to reach out and touch him on every hole, if we wanted to get arrested. We discovered this method where we could watch his tee shot land, see him hit his second shot, and then watch him putt. I'm sure you are familiar with the ropes that clear a path for the golfer from the green to the tee. We discovered that as soon as the players arrive at the green, the marshals lift those ropes and make everyone standing inside of them move. So, the key was to find the ropes and stand to the outside of them. When the Marshall would pick up the rope, we would grab onto it and help him hold it. He then, without fail, would make everyone inside the ropes leave and we would have a clear view to the green every time. Not only that, but we were also able to come within 2 feet of Tiger on every hole and offer our encouragement, which I'm sure is why he won. I must say that I have never seen such concentration in a player. He didn't even acknowledge us, nor anything we nor anyone else said. He would pick a foot of a person walking in front of him and concentrate on that for the whole walk. I didn't see him smile until 12 and that was only briefly, when he almost had a hole-in-one. The 18th hole I will always remember. We had, like I mentioned, followed Tiger for the whole round. I and many others, and we were not about to miss the final hole. After 17 we came to the 18th, looked down the fairway and said you have got to be kidding me. 55,000 people solid. So we squeezed in by the ropes 20 yards off the tee box. We heard two people talking who said they were going to do the British Open thing, my brother and I having overheard this told them we would join them and the four of us tried to gather support of everyone who walked by. We were a little disheartened when we saw the mass of security guards lining the whole fairway, but we knew that if we could get enough people they had no chance to stop us. When Tiger got past us almost 40 yards the four of us looked at each other and said lets do it. We got out to the fairway and turned behind us and saw everyone following us. Security was ready though, they stretched a line across the fairway at a cart path about half way up the 18th. I was in the front row. I think they were going to lead us in a nice orderly fashion up the fairway. The problem was they were so worried about us, that they turned their back on the rest of the crowd that was lining the fairway which felt left out. Next thing I knew another group broke away from the right side of the fairway, about 20 yards ahead of us. I pointed it out to the security guards right in front of me and they left, giving all their attention to new crowd. As soon as they turned around we all sprinted. I ended up about 10 yards to the right of tiger walking with him step for step up the fairway, too bad I was about 5 feet to far to the right or I would have been in every news paper, I wasn't thinking about that though. I just wanted to see the end of a round I had been watching the whole day. When Tiger threw the ball, I immediately retreated as did a lot of other people hoping he didn't have as good of an arm as he did. The funniest part was that Tigers Dad congratulated the crowd on being so well behaved. When he said this the security guards just shook their heads smiling. I must say that security handled it in the best way they could. I was only grabbed by one security guard in my mad dash and all I did was turn and point to everyone running by me. He smiled and gave me a small push towards the green to help me back on my way. The fans were respectful as well, pausing and quieting when required. I should say all fans except one was respectful, one guy ended up with Tigers putter cover, taken from his bag. At least he didn't get the Tiger.