Timeline of golf (2000–present) number one at the end of that year. Tiger Woods completes what becomes known as the "Tiger Slam", holding off David Duval and Phil Mickelson to win the Masters Championship in April to become the first golfer in history to hold, concurrently, all four professional major championships. For good measure, Woods had won the game's fifth most important event, the Tournament Players' Championship as well, in March. By the end of the year, however, Woods would have relinquished three of his titles, on each occasion to players winning their first major title. At the U.S. Open, South African Retief Goosen
Professional golf career of Tiger Woods strokes. The landmark victory made Woods the tournament's youngest-ever winner, as well as its first African-American winner (and its first Asian-American winner). Woods set 20 Masters records in 1997 and tied six others. He went on to win another three PGA Tour events that year, and on June 15, 1997, in only his 42nd week as a professional, rose to number one in the Official World Golf Ranking, the fastest-ever ascent to world No. 1. At the conclusion of the 1997 season, Woods was named PGA Player of the Year, the first time a golfer had won the award in