After a year in which he had lost his World No 1 position to Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods came back with a vengeance in 2005 winning two major championships – the US Masters and the Open Championship - and four other tournaments on the US PGA Tour, the Buick Invitational, the Doral, the WGC-NEC at Firestone and the WGC-American Express at Harding Park in San Francisco. He also won the Dunlop Phoenix tournament in Japan and the PGA Grand Slam of Golf.
At the age of just 30, he has now won ten major championships, placing him third on the all-time list, behind only Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen. In 2005, he led the US PGA Tour money list for the sixth time in his career.
By the end of 2005, he had won 63 tournaments worldwide with prize money of over US$68 million, and he began 2006 with victory in the Buick Invitational at the end of January, his first tournament of the year, beating Jose Maria Olazabal in a sudden death play-off at La Jolla.
Woods is one of only five players, along with Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player to have won golf’s Grand Slam, all four major championships in his career. With his win in the 2005 Open Championship at St Andrews, he became only the second golfer, after Nicklaus, to have won all four majors more than once.
