Tiger Woods Wins The Masters

On April 13, 1997, golfer Tiger Woods won his first Masters tournament, which was the first major championship of his career.  Woods became the youngest golfer and first African-American to win this prestigious event.

Tiger Woods after clinching victory at The Master in 1997.

Tiger finished Day One in fourth place, three shots behind leader John Huston, but he would take the lead on day two and never looked back.  He dominated the rest of the weekend and would go on to break the four-day tournament record, shooting 18 under par (270).  His 12-stroke win over second place finisher Tom Kite was also a Masters record, as well as a major championship record.

Woods would earn $486,000 for his victory in 1997.

On April 17, 2002 Tiger Woods becomes the third golfer to win The Masters in two consecutive years, earning his third Masters victory.

Woods would go on to a win record fourth Masters in 2005.

Woods turned professional in 1996, and by April 1997 he had already won his first major, the 1997 Masters in a record-breaking performance.

He first reached the number one position in the world rankings in June 1997. Through the 2000s, Woods was the dominant force in golf, spending 264 weeks from August 1999 to September 2004 and 281 weeks from June 2005 to October 2010 as world number one. From December 2009 to early April 2010, Woods took leave from professional golf to focus on his marriage after he admitted infidelity.

Several different women, through many worldwide media sources, revealed his multiple infidelities. This was followed by a loss of form, and his ranking gradually fell to a low of No. 58 in November 2011.

He snapped a career-long winless streak of 107 weeks when he captured the Chevron World Challenge in December 2011. Currently Tiger is ranked

Woods has broken numerous golf records. He has been world number one for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks of any other golfer. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record ten times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has the record of leading the money list in nine different seasons.

He has won 14 professional major golf championships, the second highest of any player (Jack Nicklaus leads with 18), and 79 PGA Tour events, second all time behind Sam Snead.

He has more career major wins and career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on tour.

Additionally, Woods is only the second golfer, after Jack Nicklaus, to have achieved a career Grand Slam three times. Woods has won 18 World Golf Championships, and won at least one of those events in each of the first 11 years after they began in 1999.

With Woods not playing in The Masters this weekend he missed out on a chance to add on to his five Masters title, which would have given him a chance at tying Jack Nicklaus for most victories all time at The Masters.

Since The Masters began back in 1934, it has been the first of the four major championships in golf each year.

Since 1949 the winner of The Masters has won a green jacket, however, the victor must return it to the clubhouse one year after the time of that player's victory. In most instances, a first-time champion only removes the green jacket from the club’s grounds. A golfer who wins the event multiple times uses the same green jacket awarded upon his initial win (unless he needs to be re-fitted with a new green jacket).

The Champions Dinner, inaugurated by Ben Hogan in 1952, is held on the Tuesday before each tournament, and is open only to past champions and certain board members of the Augusta National Golf Club.

Beginning in 1963, legendary golfers, usually past champions, have hit an honorary tee shot on the morning of the first round. Such golfers have included Fred McLeod, Jock Hutchinson, Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. Since 1960, a semi-social par 3 contest, on a par-3 course on Augusta National's grounds, has been played on the day before the first round of each Masters Tournament.

Nicklaus has won more Masters Tournaments than any other golfer, winning six times between 1963 and 1986. Other multiple winners include Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods, with four each; and Jimmy Demaret, Sam Snead, Gary Player, Nick Faldo and Phil Mickelson, with three each. Player, from South Africa, was the first non-American player to win the tournament in 1961.

Since the Augusta National course first opened in 1933, it has been modified many times by different architects. Among the changes: greens have been reshaped and, on occasion, entirely re-designed, bunkers have been added, water hazards have been extended, new tee boxes have been built, hundreds of trees have been planted, and several mounds have been installed.

This year Bubba Watson won the Masters at Augusta out pacing a 20-year old Jordan Spieth. The victory was Watson’s second at The Masters  in six attempts, and second in the last three years. His first victory at Augusta came in 2012.

Bubba Watson after clinching victory at The Masters today.

Watson becomes the 17^th golfer to win two masters, and also becomes only the third golfer to complete the feat in their first six attempts at August.

Ali Wins First Fight

On Oct. 29, 1960, Muhammad Ali also known as Cassius Clay makes his first professional fight. In that fight Ali would beat Tunney Hunsaker in six rounds.

At the ripe age of 18 Cassius Clay, now known as Muhammad Ali, earned a Gold for the United States in the 1960 Rome Olympics in the Light Heavyweight class.

At the age of 22, Ali won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston. 

Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, subsequently converting to Sunni Islam in 1975.

In 1967, three years after Ali had won the heavyweight championship, he was publicly vilified for his refusal to be conscripted into the U.S. military, based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. 

Ali would go on to become the first and only three-time lineal World Heavyweight Champion.

Nicknamed "The Greatest," Ali was involved in several historic boxing matches.

Notable among these were three with rival Joe Frazier, which are considered among the greatest in boxing history, and one with George Foreman, where he finally regained his stripped titles seven years later. Ali was well known for his unorthodox fighting style, epitomized by his catchphrase "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee", and employing techniques such as the Ali Shuffle and the rope-a-dope.

Ali brought beauty and grace to the most uncompromising of sports and through the wonderful excesses of skill and character, he became the most famous athlete in the world.

He was also known for his pre-match hype, where he would "trash talk" opponents, often with rhymes.

In 1999, Ali was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC.

Ali finished his career with 61 fights, winning 56 times, 37 by knock out, with only five losses. His fastest win came via knockout when he was just 19 years old. On Feb. 7, 1961, then Clay beat Jim Robinson in the first round just 1:34 into the fight.

Muhammad Ali lighted the one hundredth anniversary Olympic torch in a very emotional moment in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia. Ali was also given a replacement gold medal for his boxing victory at the 1960 Summer Olympics. Ali had supposedly thrown his previous gold medal into the Ohio River after being refused entry into a restaurant. 

Cobb Collects His Final Hit; 4,191

On September 3, 1928, Major League Baseball Hall of Famer and Detroit Tigers great Ty Cobb gets career hit 4,191, it would also be his last.

At the time of his retirement he was the hit leader in baseball, but since has been passed by one man, Pete Rose. He and Rose are still the only members of the 4,000 hit-club in MLB history. However, Ichiro Suzuki now has over 4,000 hits if you total his time with in the Japanese Leagues with his time in the MLB.

Cobb, nicknamed "The Georgia Peach," was an American Major League Baseball outfielder. He was born in The Narrows, Georgia, a small rural community of farmers that was not an official city or village at the time.

Cobb spent 22 seasons with the Detroit Tigers, the last six as the team's player-manager, and finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1936 Cobb received the most votes of any player on the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, receiving 222 out of a possible 226 votes.

At the end of his playing career Cobb was credited with breaking 90 MLB records including 54 career steals of home, still the most of all time, 892 stolen bases, which has since been surpassed by three players including current stolen base champion Oakland Athletics great Rickey Henderson.

Most runs scored with 2,245, which has since been surpassed only by Henderson. Most career hits with 4,191, which has since been surpassed only by Rose.

Cobb finished his career as a one time American League MVP in 1911, the winner of 12 batting titles, including nine in a row from 1907-1915, both of which are the most of all time. He batted over .400 three times, which is tied for an MLB record and only batted under .320 once in his career. He also led the American League with a .350 batting average at age 20, second youngest in MLB history to do so.

Cobb’s career numbers include a .366 batting average, a .433 on-base percentage, a .512 slugging percentage, 4,189 hits, 724 doubles, 295 triples, 117 home runs, 1,249 walks, 1,938 RBIs, 2,246 runs scored, 897 stolen bases in 3,034 games played.

Cobb was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, and Cooperstown Hall of Fame in 1936 with 98.23 percent of the vote. Cobb received the most votes of any player on the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, receiving 222 out of a possible 226 votes.

Since the inception of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York there have been 300 members elected with only three members with a higher percentage of the vote being inducted after Cobb including in this order of percentage; New York Mets great Tom Seaver 98.84 percent, Texas Rangers, Houston Astros and California Angels great Nolan Ryan 98.79 percent and Baltimore Orioles great Cal Ripken Jr. with 98.53 percent.

Only Kansas City Royals George Brett has topped 98 percent of the vote without surpassing Cobb, with 98.19 percent.