PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Ernie Els laughs when the question arrives.
Of course he remembers You remember your great moments in the major championships like you remember your loved ones. When you score better than 154 players in the US Open field, don’t forget.
But Els also laughs because he knows no one really thought about his best score of 154 players at the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach. Just think of the name that appeared above Els’ on the huge manual billboard at 17 Mile Drive that Sunday in June – Woods. And yes, they think about how The only guy Ernie Els didn’t hit changed golf forever.
“I’ve had that question for about 20 years of my life,” Els said on a chilly Friday afternoon at Pebble Beach 26 years later. “Playing with a guy like Tiger played that whole week, but especially that Sunday, I don’t think he really missed a shot.”
History persists everywhere, but especially in golf, and especially on the great golf courses. It lingers a little longer this weekend at Pebble Beach, where many of the biggest stars from that 2000 US Open are among the players in the field at the PURE Insurance Championship – a 54-hole PGA Tour Champions event played annually from the cliff golf course.
Els was one of the few players in the field in both 2000 and 2026, and he was one of the few players to underline an interesting line in Woods’ 15-stroke winning streak, the longest in major championship golf history: We don’t appreciate it enough.
“I knew long before it happened that he was going to do it,” he said Rocco Mediate, who finished T32 that week. “What he did, it didn’t surprise people who have a brain.”
In Mediate’s memory, playing against Tiger at the peak of his powers was like playing Red Rover against a rhinoceros.
“He had everything. Mentally he was ridiculous, but physically he was also ridiculous,” Mediate said. “The shots he played, nobody surprised me – because they couldn’t be played, and he played them a lot. Crazy stuff.”
It can be easy to understate greatness, to sweep it under the generalization of “THE GOAT” and go ahead. But those who attended Woods that week saw something that today’s majors did not: they saw a player who had made a complete and total victory, who had beaten the best in the sport so summarily faced a cakewalk in a major title – and who kept pushing anyway.
“I’ll never know how he did it,” said Stuart Appleby, MC in 2000. “It was just like him. she conquered it. But he continued to do pars. He didn’t let off the gas when he got up from 8. It was miraculous.”
“Well, after that week, I felt like I was inferior,” Justin Leonard, T16, said with a laugh. “When it becomes steady, the greens become really steady, and the red is so deep as – you know, it can make you feel quite human. Tiger was not many weeks, but certainly not that week.”
In the end, no one had a better view of the action than Els, the tournament finalist who shared each of the last 18 holes with Woods who already led by a million and who still poured it.
“The intensity with which he walked on the first tee, I will never forget,” said Els. “He kept that up through 18 holes, even winning by 12, 15, whatever.”
Els recalls his performance that week. He remembers with pride how he played. He remembers something more vivid: the feeling of certainty that he finished his lap. Not in himself, but in the knowledge that he had just witnessed his change of profession forever.
“I knew the game changed especially that day,” Els said. “Obviously he won some big events before that, but that was kind of a really serious changing of the guard in sports. Lucky to have been around to see that up close.”
