What Is The Tiger Slam?

When Tiger Woods won the 2001 Masters Tournament, he claimed a historic achievement that has since been known as the ‘Tiger Slam’.

In professional golf, winning all four men's Major championships – the Masters Tournament, PGA Championship, US Open and The Open Championship – in a calendar year is called a Grand Slam. 

No golfer in the modern era has been able to achieve this feat, with Bobby Jones being the only man to do so in 1930 when he won the four Majors at that time: the British Amateur, the British Open, the United States Open and the United States Amateur.

So when Woods took out the 2001 Masters after winning the year's final three Majors in 2000 – what remains his most successful year to date – he became the first golfer in the modern era to hold all four at the same time. 

The term Tiger Slam was coined to honour his remarkable achievement, with the Tiger Slam differing from a Grand Slam as it wasn’t achieved within a calendar year. 

Woods started the Tiger Slam with the historic 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach, where he won by a record 15 shots. It's still the largest Major winning margin to date. 

He then won his first Claret Jug at St Andrews in the 2000 Open Championship before edging past Bob May in a playoff at Valhalla to lift his second of four Wanamaker Trophies at the 2000 PGA Championship.

His second Masters title, and fourth consecutive Major, came in April 2001 after beating David Duval by two strokes.

Woods is also one of five golfers to have won all four men's Majors in their career, known as the Career Grand Slam, and became the youngest to do so when he won The Open Championship in 2000.

The four other players with a career Grand Slam are Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Gene Sarazen.

Woods is also the second player, along with Nicklaus, to achieve a career Grand Slam three times. He is second on the men's all-time Major titles list with 15, behind Nicklaus’ 18. 

The American’s last major appearance was the 2023 Masters, where he withdrew from the tournament in the third round after making the cut. His professional future remains up in the air since suffering serious leg and ankle injuries in a car crash in February 2021, although he plans to play more in 2024 after undergoing a subtalar fusion surgery on his ankle in April.