'He's the reason we're out here:' Tiger Woods' career takes center stage for World Golf Hall of Fame ceremony

It’s more than the 82 victories, 15 major championships, two Players Championships and records for the most consecutive cuts, most weeks ranked first in the world and the only man to hold the titles of all four majors at the same time.

Tiger Woods’ impact on golf will have a lasting effect through the players who came to the game and were inspired or motivated because they wanted to be that guy: the shot-making, putt-draining, fist-pumping, cold-blooded winner, the best of his generation and rivaled only by his own boyhood hero, Jack Nicklaus, for the sheer weight of his accomplishments.

“It was always because of Tiger,” said PGA Tour player Kramer Hickok on Monday, as he walked to the putting green to prepare for his first practice session of Players Championship week, at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. “We all practiced his fist-pumps on the putting green growing up. We all wanted to be like him. He’s the reason a lot of us are out here.”

“The greatest of all time,” added Matthew Wolff.

World Golf Hall of Fame induction: Tim Finchem took PGA Tour purses, international reach to new highs

Players final field: No Tiger, no Phil, but the rest of the world’s stars will be at Stadium Course

'Kill Pete, fire Deane:' The mood was ugly at the 1982 Players but Jerry Pate stayed positive

Woods joined by Finchem

Woods will take center stage on Wednesday at the PGA Tour’s Global Home when he is inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame (7 p.m., Golf Channel). Also entering the Hall will be former PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, three-time U.S. Women’s Open champion Susie Maxwell Berning and pioneering golf architect and developer Marion Hollins.

Woods will be introduced by his 14-year-old daughter Sam, Finchem by two-time Players champion and Hall of Fame member Davis Love III and Berning by Hall of Fame member Judy Rankin.

There is no public sale of tickets.

The background by now is familiar because Woods has grown up and lived his life (including some difficult personal issues) before everyone’s eyes.

Schooled in the physical and mental aspects of the game by his beloved father Earl, Woods was on TV talk shows at the age of 2, won six U.S. Junior World titles, was the youngest to win the U.S. Junior Amateur in 1992 and played in a PGA Tour event at the age of 15 and won six USGA national championships in all.

Woods turned pro after winning his third U.S. Amateur in 1996 and won two of his first seven PGA Tour starts. That he would someday be in the Hall of Fame was secured when he won the 2000 U.S. Open, British Open and PGA, then turned the calendar to 2001 and won the third of his five Masters titles to rest the trophies of all four tournaments on his mantle.

It’s the closest anyone has come to the modern professional grand slam. Between that 2000 Open victory at Pebble Beach — which he won by a record 15 shots — and his 2005 Masters title, Woods won seven of his 15 majors and 24 of his PGA Tour titles.

The images of Woods stalking courses and tossing aside contenders as if they were so many rag dolls, clad in his traditional Sunday red, are indelible.

Woods held the No. 1 spot on the world rankings for a record 683 weeks and holds the Tour record for making 142 cuts in a row. In addition to his 15 majors, he won 18 World Golf Championships, 108 worldwide events, played on a combination of 17 Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams and has a staggering 11-1 record in playoffs

But what may serve as the crowning achievement was in 2018 and 2019 when he battled back from numerous back surgeries and personal issues to win the Tour Championship and The Masters.

Woods inspired other players

“I wanted to be a professional golfer before Tiger came along,” said Tour player John Hahn. “But he inspired me to be better. He was the guy testing the limits, really trying to break records that when I was growing up, looked unattainable.”

Russell Knox grew up in Scotland when Woods took the golf world by storm, becoming the youngest player to win The Masters in 1997.

Knox had a poster of Woods celebrating his final putt that year at Augusta National on his bedroom wall.

“I was 11, 12 years old and no one had ever seen anything like Tiger,” Knox said. “Anyone who is around my age started playing golf and wanted to get better because of Tiger.”

Woods not only won tournaments. He changed the public perception of golfers. They didn’t have to be pot-bellied men in stretch pants and visors. They could be athletes and train just as hard as football, basketball, baseball or soccer players.

Woods also jump-started the equipment and instructional industry with his emphasis on length off the tee and was so mentally tough in his approach to tournament golf, preparation and intensity down the stretch that former Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin used Woods as an example during the 2000 season he was trying to illustrate to his players what he wanted out of them in terms of focus.

Paul Casey, who was a player at Arizona State when Woods was a Tour rookie (and was present on the 16th tee of the TPC Scottsdale in 1997 when Woods made his iconic hole-in-one in the WM Phoenix Open), said many of those components were already in place when Woods announced “Hello, World,” in his press conference the previous summer when he turned professional.

“Tiger gets a lot of credit for bringing fitness to golf, but we were working out at ASU,” Casey said. “We were on a path to explore the power game. Explore [swing] speed. The mental game. But he was everything. His power was stronger. His mental game was stronger. Plus, what he really did was he made golf cool, which was really nice because going to school on the bus [in his native England] with clubs was not a cool thing to do at the time. There was this validation, thanks to him.”

Iconic moments

Woods also created moments that will last in golf history. His sweeping fist pump when making the final putt to break the course record at the 1997 Masters … the emotional embrace with his son Charlie after winning the 2019 Masters … the sheer joy when he made the putt on the 72nd hole at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines to get into a playoff with Rocco Mediate … and his reaction at the 17th green of the Stadium Course in the 2001 Players when he drained the “Better than Most” putt, just a short walk from the place where he will be enshrined Wednesday.

The Hall of Fame induction will be the fourth public appearance Woods has made since a car crash in February of 2021 shattered his right ankle. He was able to play with his son in the PNC Father-Son Championship in Orlando in December and did a few ceremonial functions at the Hero World Challenge and Genesis Invitational, two tournaments he hosts.

Woods did not do any media appearances before the induction ceremony. But at the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles, he explained why he was the best player of his and most other generations when he was asked if he had any advice for young players such as Aaron Beverly, who played in the tournament through the Charlie Sifford Memorial exemption.

“Finding that passion for practice to prepare to get yourself ready for an event, enjoying the process of it, it makes things so much better,” he said. “I would encourage Aaron and others to just enjoy that practice of going out there and finding it. As I keep saying, dig it out of the dirt ... earn it on your own. No one's going to give it to you, you've got to go earn it. That earning it, that's part of the fun. That's part of the joy of going out there and hitting 500 to 1,000 balls a day and finding it out there because that's when you start to understand you own it, you own your game, not anyone else's game.”

And there has never been quite a game like Tiger’s.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Tiger Woods takes center stage for World Golf Hall of Fame ceremony