Steve Scott - Hey, Tiger—You Need to Move Your Mark Back: 9 Simple Words that Changed the Game of Golf Forever

Copyright 2021 by Steve Scott and Tripp Bowden

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Kai Texel

Cover photo by Gary Hellwege

Back cover photograph credit: Getty Images

ISBN: 978-1-5107-6529-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-6530-6

Printed in the United States of America

To the future generation of golfers everywhere, may you always carry forth the honor and traditions of our great game and forever play and compete in the words of the great Nelson Mandela, Live life as though nobody is watching, and express yourself as though everyone is listening.

Achievements on the golf course are not what matters, decency and honesty are what matter.

Tiger Woods

ITS THE SUMMER OF 96, AUGUST 25TH, 5:56 p.m., and the entire world of golf is about to change in the most unpredictable of ways.

Not because of a stroke taken.

But because of a stroke that wasnt.

ITS THE FINALS OF THE US AMATEUR, the biggest amateur golf tournament in the world, considered a major by many, including the great Bobby Jones (he won five) and equally great Jack Nicklaus (he won two) and, apparently, a young, two-time defending champion Tiger Woods from California, with wings on his swing, who is getting absolutely thrashed by an equally young Steve Scott from Florida, who is much more walk-along-the-ground than wings, and is in a state of disbelief. While certainly quite confident in his own game, Steve didnt see this coming.

Certainly not like this.

Simply dominating Steve off the tee, this amazing Tiger Woods kid flies Steves drives by 50 yards or more, depending on club choice. When Tiger is hitting wedge into the green, Steve is hitting 5-iron. Its really an unfair fight.

Even Tigers stinger 2-iron off the tee creeps up too close for comfort to Steves flushed drives.

Steve and Tiger are polar opposites, both personally and geographically. But they do have this one thing in common.

Both collegians are vying for the US Amateur title and the ultimate stepping-stone to lucrative PGA Tour contracts and the chance to create immortality. Win, and the world is your oyster.

Lose, and you are the discarded shell.

The US Am.

Thirty-six holes define the US Ams finals match, grueling to say the least under Pumpkin Ridge Golf Clubs ceaseless summer heat, despite its Pacific Northwest Oregon location. But both of these young guns are young and foolishthey are 19 and 20, after all, and their adrenaline is flowing like a live volcano. This is the biggest moment of their very young lives.

Five thousand, five hundred and thirty-eight entries into the tournament have now become two.

The first 18 holes sees Steve Scott a mind-numbing 5 holes up on Tiger Woods, who has yet to lose a finals match in all his born days, in spite of being 6-down to Tripp Kuehne in 94 and 3-down to Buddy Marucci in 95.

Since embarking on his unthinkable tear through the amateur ranks, Tiger is 350 en route to all his previous USGA victories (three straight USGA Junior Ams and two consecutive US Ams), and on this day he is vying for match number 36, for a place in golf history.

This is an absolute butt whooping. Steve should know. Hes had one or two in his young 19 years of life, including one from Tiger in the final round of a college tournament hardly nine months prior. Score of 80 for Steve, 70 for Tiger. Ass kicked.

But on this day, Steve Scott is trashing Tigers perfect script altogether.

Imagine being down 283 in the Super Bowl rolling into the fourth quarter, 5-zip in a soccer match midway through, a 20-point lead in basketball with little time left on the clock.

Keep something in mind. In the history of the game of golf, no one has ever won three U.S. Amateurs in a row. Not the great Bobby Jones, the equally great Jack Nicklaus, nor the greatest amateur golfer of the modern era (next to the one standing beside Steve on the first tee of the finals match, that is), Jay Sigel.

No one.

Wow.

Tiger changes outfits after the first 18-hole pummeling.

Because Steve was so far ahead, NBC was worried that the finals match might be over far too early for their TV window. Theres a long intermission90 minutes. Almost double a Super Bowl halftime. Is it the longest intermission in US Amateur history?

That is a long time, for someone with momentum, to, well, lose said momentum, and someone else to gain it.

Tiger changes into a red shirt and dark pants, from a morning match of white shirt and khakis.

Steve stays the same. After all, he doesnt want to break the mojo. While Tiger heads to the practice tee with his golf swing coach, the legendary Butch Harmon, and his sports psychologist, Jay Brunza, Steve has lunch with his aunt, uncle, and caddy and then goes shopping in the pro shop, with his girlfriend, Kristi.

Souvenirs of a magical week.

Girlfriend Kristi is also Steves caddy this magical week, by the way, and she is damn good at what she does. With all the aspects of toting the rockclubbing your player, talking him off the ledge, keeping him pumped as a jumpy castle or cucumber calm. Kristi is also a fine player in her own right.

Kristi and Steve are like Batman and Robin. How awesome is that? You have the love of your life on your bag for the biggest moment of your life.

FROM THE FIRST SHOT TIGER HITS ON the practice tee in the practice session with Butch by his side, he starts smiling. And laughing.

Laughing.

Who laughs when youre 5-down in the US Amateur with life-changing history on the line?

The second 18 holes of this historic match at Pumpkin Ridge, like often in the back 9 of our lives, is drastically different. Steve Scott has moments where he leaks oil like a drip pan, while Tiger dials it in like an old rotary phone, no number forgotten, just as Tiger will do just a few months later, when he wins his first PGA Tour event at The Las Vegas Invitational, beating PGA Championship winner Davis Love III in a playoff, one of many playoffs and Tour events Tiger will win over the course of his legendary career.

(Tiger would come into that event finishing 11th, T5, and T3 and ride that momentum like a Cowabunga wave into a historic 12-shots-clear-of-the-field Masters victory the following season. In his first full year on Tour, Tiger wins a Major. Crazy. And yet right now Steve Scott has him on the ropes, like Muhammad Ali on Joe Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila!)