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20 years later, remembering Tiger Woods’ first PGA victory at Las Vegas Invitational

He already had played 90 holes of golf. But Tiger Woods needed just a little more time on the golf course before he could lay claim to his first win on the PGA Tour.

He beat Davis Love III in a playoff and captured first prize of $297,000 for his win at TPC Summerlin.

That was 20 years ago. Golf fans can recite Woods’ resume by heart since that that Oct. 6 afternoon: The 79 wins on Tour. The 14 major victories. More than $110 million in earnings from tournament play. Seven Ryder Cup appearances. Seven Presidents Cup appearances. The Nike deal. His changing caddies and swing coaches over the years.

They also remember the bad things such as the infamous incident on Thanksgiving eve in 2009 that saw him crash his SUV after his wife had learned of an extramarital affair Woods had been involved in, the slew of injuries that has seen his career in decline ever since and the changing of swing coaches and caddies.

Woods has not played a PGA Tour event in 14 months, and you will not see him in Las Vegas this week. But the memories of 1996 and how important that first win was to his career still resonate with him.

“I remember I was playing pretty well going into Vegas with a couple of top-5 finishes,” Woods said in an email to the Review-Journal through the PGA Tour. “I think I started the final round about four strokes back and shot 64 and beat Davis on the first playoff hole.

“I was pretty high on the money list, so there was pressure to do well. The win pushed me into the top 125.”

Woods said every player remembers his first win.

“It was just a great feeling to get my first Tour win,” he said. “The crowds were great and very supportive of both me and Davis.

“It’s something I always dreamed of. I had a limited number of events to earn my card, so this was really important.

“I still have the giant check hanging in my office.”

Charlie Baron was the tournament’s director. He can’t believe it already has been 20 years.

“I didn’t realize that,” he said from his home in Massachusetts. “We knew Tiger from when he played in Vegas as a junior and then later in college at Stanford. So it was an easy call to give him a (sponsor’s) exemption. And when we saw the crowds that turned out, we knew we made the right decision to let him in.”

Tim Dahlberg was covering the tournament for the Associated Press. He also remembered the crowds.

“I had covered it the first few years, and it was a sleepy event,” said Dahlberg, who is now AP’s national columnist. “But Tiger energized it. When he got into contention over the weekend, the crowds were unbelievable. Not only were they big, they were excited. It wasn’t your typical golf crowd.”

Kevin Iole, who covered the tournament for the Review-Journal, noticed the same thing.

“There was almost no decorum,” Iole said. “It was like Tiger was the only person they came to see, and they would run to the next spot after he would hit his shot. That bothered the other players.”

So did the attention Woods received.

“Fred Funk had a share of the lead and he barely got mentioned in my story, because everyone wanted to read about Tiger,” Iole said. “So they brought Fred into the interview room and he kinda ripped me for writing about Tiger so much. But the truth was Tiger was the story that week.”

UNLV golf coach Dwaine Knight had tried hard to recruit Woods only to lose out in the end to Stanford. As Knight watched Woods hit great shot after great shot, he wasn’t surprised.

“I knew he could be special,” he said. “But no one could have predicted how great he would be.

“He was really long off the tee. He hit it farther than anyone else. So he took all the difficulty out of TPC (Summerlin). And he was also putting awfully well. You put those two things together, and you knew he was going to win. Or at the very least be a factor in who did win.”

Still, Love was playing some great golf himself. And as they went to the first playoff hole, Love hit his drive in the fairway as did Woods, and it would be a race to see who could get it close to the pin and give himself the best shot at birdie. But Love hit his second shot long into the back bunker. Woods put his second shot a couple of feet from the hole, and it was over.

“Basically, Davis choked,” Dahlberg said. “He had an easy second shot, and he hit it into that back bunker. That basically ended it.”

Jack Sheehan was the master of ceremonies at the 18th green. He would be responsible for interviewing Woods and handing him the trophy.

“I was thinking of something clever to say,” said Sheehan, the longtime local golf historian and writer. “So we get to the ceremony and I said, ‘How about a round of applause for the wealthiest college dropout?’ since he had left Stanford early to go pro. And he comes over to me and whispers in my ear, ‘I think Bill Gates got me on that one.’

“But what I remember the most about the weekend were not only the size of the crowds, but the diversity. You had African-Americans. You had Asians. People who normally didn’t attend golf tournaments were here rooting for this kid who was playing in his fifth pro tournament. That’s how special Tiger Woods was even back then.”

Dahlberg already had begun writing his story for AP. He went to the interview room to find out from Love what happened in the playoff hole. When he got back, Dahlberg found Woods sitting at his seat, staring at Dahlberg’s computer and reading what he already had written about him.

“I said to Tiger, ‘Anything you like?’ and he pointed to the number in the story ($297,000) and he said, ‘I like that.’”

Dahlberg has covered Woods’ entire career, and he misses the young Tiger.

“He was fun,” Dahlberg said. “He was a breath of fresh air.”

Woods agreed to return to Las Vegas to defend his title in 1997. But after a second-round 64, Woods ballooned to a 77 at the Desert Inn. And while he made the cut, he never got into contention at TPC Summerlin. He would finish tied for 36th place as Bill Glasson defeated David Edwards and Billy Mayfair by one shot to win the tournament.

Woods hasn’t been back since. Baron tried to get him to play again but could never convince Woods to do so.

“We tried to entice him,” Baron said. “I remember there were a couple of times he was in town during tournament week and we still couldn’t get him to play.”

Dahlberg said Woods owed the Las Vegas Founders, the group that put on the town’s PGA Tour event then, a little bit more than that.

“They got him to come back to defend, but he could’ve really helped put the tournament on the national map and grown it into something big,” Dahlberg said. “But Tiger is all about Tiger, and he treated the tournament pretty shabbily in my opinion.”

And though Woods hasn’t played competitively in 14 months, he still has the public’s support. It was why Shriners Open tournament director Patrick Lindsey pushed really hard to try and convince Woods to come back.

“I think that would’ve been pretty cool to have him back at the place where he won his first pro tournament 20 years later,” Lindsey said. “We tried really, really hard. Hopefully we can get him next year. It would be great to have him back in Las Vegas.”

Contact Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow @stevecarprj on Twitter.

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