The Greatest Sports Moment I've Ever Seen
Reflecting on watching a legend made in real time
A moment you’ll never forget
Sports are magic.
They contain miracles. There are heroes and villains. Redemption arcs and the pain of swift justice. Legends are born there. It’s a place of romance and wonder. Of narrative and becoming.
The greats in sport remain the greats because their athletic feats echo excellence through the generations. We pass down stories starting with “I remember when I saw [insert player], I’ll never forget the way he moved effortlessly.”
I recently saw a video going around social media of the greatest live sporting moment I’ve ever witness. It also happened to be the ‘self professed’ greatest single moment of perhaps the greatest athlete of the past 30 years illustrious career.
I’m talking about a golf shot Tiger Woods hit in the fall of 2000 at the Canadian Open at Glen Abbey.
First I want to set the scene and describe the moment. What is was like to live through sports history in real time.
Then I want to use that moment as a reflective point for the meaning of spectating and why sports draw us into their power, but why we must always be on guard against that force. It can move us to greatness ourselves, or trap us in a voyeuristic identity.
Finally, I’ll offer some words of wisdom and advice on how you can live as an athletic legend in your own life, we all can’t be world beaters., but we can craft real legends with our good deeds and exceptional efforts.
You’re pulling a 6 Iron?
Were you lucky enough to see Tiger Woods play golf during the peak of his dominance?
That was the year 2000. He won what’s called the ‘Tiger Slam’ winning all 4 major championships in a row, but not on a calendar year. That might have been the most dominant single 365 day strectch of any athlete EVER let alone of the past few decades. When Tiger showed up wearing red on Sunday, it was over. He was going to win. And that was that (and he did, oh my did he ever).
It wasn’t just that he was winning so much, it was HOW he was winning. Crushing the ball of the tee with almost reckless abandon. The deft calm to hit incredible recovery shots and then sink every putt withing 12 feet, it made him unbeatable. His opponents were demoralized before stepping onto the first tee.
In 2000 I’m in grade 9 and my best friend at the time calls me up on one of the first weekends in school. “Hey, do you want to come with my Dad and I to the Canadian Open tomorrow, it’s championship Sunday and we’re hoping to see Tiger do something amazing.” YES, PLEASE!
He’s got a chance to do another incredible thing, win the Golf Triple Crown. That’s winning the British, US, and Canadian Open tournaments in the same year. He already had the other two, needing just the maple leaf in his cap. It was a big Sunday at the height of Tiger’s popularity and competitive domination.
I remember our strategy, we parked ourselves on the 6th green close to the pin and watched all the golfers come through. In the final pair we got to see Tiger. I remember him lining up his putt and coming about 6 feet away from me, close enough to touch. The energy was insane. Golf isn’t a boisterous sport, it’s genteel and reserved. Crowds are expected to behave. But the energy was electric, the buzz around Tiger was intense. People chased him all day, they yelled, they roared, they anticipated, they dreamed. It was like nothing I’d seen before or since.
As the round continued, we walked the beautiful course stopping every hole or so to see a few shots then keep going. As the day started to end, we headed towards the 18th green to see if we could catch Tiger one more time.
Then we watch him do THIS:
The roar of the crowd, I’ve never heard another come anywhere close. Watching the video now gives me goosebumps.
You don’t know the weight of a moment until you have time to appreciate it’s impact, that’s history 101. Why does Tiger call this his best shot? Why does it help cement him as a legend?
Hero’s Get Remembered, Legends Never Die
Tiger looks down 216 yards to the pin from this sand trap. He has water to carry the entire way to the green, which he can’t see cause it’s blocked by a tree. Too long and his in more deep sand, too short and he’s in the water. Oh, and it’s also raining making his lie in the sand, the wind and rain in the air, and the landing spot on the green unpredictable. It’s a risky shot.
He pulled a 6 iron and nailed it. No one has made the same shot since. There is a plaque on this hole commemorating the shot. Players of all skill levels drop a ball in that same bunker and try to hit that same shot. Some have done it with 5 irons before, no one with a 6. It was a once in a life time shot in a moment most would have shrunk from the risk of the challenge.
It’s the last hole of the tournament, if he makes a mistake he loses it and his shot at the triple crown. He also loses the mystique of being unbeatable on Sundays. He loses the aura of daring and resiliency in his game, he wasn’t able to pull this one out. There’s a lot riding on this shot.
That’s why he’s the best, because he steps up and hits it ANYWAYS.
Tiger was willing to play the game with courage and daring like few have before or after. Golf is a game of managing risk, not dancing directly with it. This was Tiger’s power. His self belief that he could win no matter what, and that he had the skill to pull it off if only he could commit to the shot.
That’s why this is his best shot ever. It’s an embodiment of the way he became a legend beyond the game, changing it forever, and dominating in a way no one has come close to since.
When you watch it live you think, ‘I can’t believe he just did that again!’ The mystique grows instead of shrinks. The legend blooms instead of subsiding. You anticipate, what could possible come next, instead of falling back on, I knew he couldn’t keep it up.
The Power of Watching Sports
These moments, that moment. That highlight. That goal. That dunk. That shot! The romance of sport draws us into their narrative. The drama of the contest plays on our emotions. And when we witness the unbelievable we become believers in sport. But we mistake the 0.01% for the 99.99%.
Modern sports fans watch a lot of boring, uninspired, non interesting, and to be frank bad games. Not every moment is the ‘best’ one. You have to endure a lot of stinkers to find the gem.
When we call sports ‘entertainment’ we want something like this to happen every time we tune in. When it doesn’t we turn to other things to make us happy, like consuming food and alcohol, making prop bets, or just trash talking other fans without paying attention to the performances.
Sports aren’t really entertaining, that’s the dirty little secret.
Instead they are inspiring when we see a miracle in sport. They speak to our spirits. We want the human drama and the tension of uncertainty. And we crave it so much that we’re blinded to the dull performances we watch more often than not in the modern sporting world.
There’s a real power to sports, they take over our imagination. But we must be careful to remember that legends don’t happen every day or game, we have to pay attention for the right reason.
How to be an athletic legend yourself
It’s clear that athletic legends impact our lives, we remember them and cherish the memories and inpsiration they’ve given us. I’m sure everyone reading this has a similar sporting experience to my Tiger Wood’s story. It’s also true that everyone reading this is not a world class athlete about to become the legend of their sport history records for generations.
But that’s no reason to limit yourself in sports and aiming to become a legend in your own heroic journey. Here’s how I see it.
A legend is a story that inspired others to become legendary themselves. I’ve never seen Maurice the Rocket Richard play hockey, but I read about him in books, saw his statisitcs, heard the stories of those who saw him, and in turn he inspired me to play hockey and love sports.
We ALL have that power to inspire someone close to us to do something daring and courageous for themselves. But we have to go after what we love with a desparate urgency. We must achieve. We must aim at excellence. We must take risks. We must be bold in the face of failure. We must have the truth to rely upon. We need to train hard and compete with our hearts.
I’ve seen it first hand. I started my online journey battling censorious woke mobs on university campuses. I rarely posted about trail running or fitness or my academic expertise as a sport historian and philosopher. But many people reached out to me saying those posts motivated them, inspired them, interested them, and they’ begun their own fitness journeys.
It wasn’t because I was the fastest. It wasn’t because I was winning races. It was because I was sharing what meant the most to me about fitness and people’s resonated with the signal of my heart, that’s what aims me in fitness afterall.
That capacity is within us all. If you move in a way you love and endeavor to gain skill for its own sake, so you can perform the activity better simply because you like it and want to do better, you will inpsire others to do the same in your life.
The physical is the obvious place to start because it’s the most honest and also a language we clearly understand when looking at the power of sport and it’s hold over our imaginations. So sign up for a big race and see how it challenges someone in your life to follow.
If you act on your heart and take the right risks, you’ll become a legend to someone. That’s what rewatching the greatest sporting moment I’ve ever seen just taught me.
Now go and LIVE IT.