During the first round of the 1996 Las Vegas Invitational, Bob Miller did his best to keep a respectful distance between he and his professional partner. As one of the three amateurs in his group, Nevada’s sitting governor just wanted to give golf’s rising superstar, Tiger Woods, plenty of space during his fifth start since joining the PGA TOUR.

Chasing his first professional victory, the 20-year-old Woods – whose professional debut came two months prior at the Greater Milwaukee Open – had gotten off to a fast start to begin his professional career. Through his first 19 professional rounds, Woods posted a scoring average of 67.8 and in his previous three starts at the Bell Canadian Open, Quad City Classic, and B.C. Open, he finished 11th, T-5, and T-3.

Governor Miller, a veteran of the pro-am circuit who had played with superstars such as Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer, knew Woods came into the tournament intent on putting his first victory on the board. Other than making some small talk about his son who attended Stanford at the same time as Woods, he instead got an up-close look at the laser-like focus that would propel Woods into the golf pantheon.

“It was something to look forward to, playing with an up-and-coming star, but Tiger was perhaps a little more guarded than the others,” Miller recalls. “He was polite, but he kind of stayed to himself which I think was kind of understandable.”

Great things were also expected that week of Woods, whose father Earl predicted on the Monday before the tournament that the first win of his son’s career would come in Las Vegas. Even his mother, Kultida, who had not seen her son since the Greater Milwaukee Open, travelled to Nevada to watch her son in person.

Then, on the first day of the five-round, Wednesday-Sunday tournament, Woods performance felt underwhelming by his own blossoming standard. He shot a modest 70 amidst a day dotted with low scores, including a course-record 62 shot by Keith Fergus, which left Woods eight shots off the lead.

Yet Woods answered the very next day, coming back to nearly match the mark set by Fergus with a round of 63 which included 12 three’s on the scorecard and only 25 putts. According to his own coach Butch Harmon, Woods probably should have posted a score in the 50s.

He encountered some adversity in the third round on Friday when he pulled his left groin muscle on the 15th hole, yet still managed to finish with a 68 for the day. Though he had to limp through the fourth round on Saturday, he shot a slightly better 67. After being in 83rd place following Wednesday’s opening round, Woods had climbed 76 spots on the leaderboard to find himself in seventh place and only four strokes back of tournament leader Ronnie Black at 19-under. The rest of the TOUR was about to get its first real glimpse into what it’s like to faec Tiger Woods on Sunday.

The week prior in Georgia during a practice round with Davis Love III, Woods remarked to Love that he hoped to play him head-to-head down the stretch of a tournament. Neither would have to wait long for that outcome.

Woods put on an impressive display en route to a final round eight-under 64 at TPC Summerlin, playing the par-five holes in five under and posting three birdies early on the back nine to apply pressure on would-be challengers Black, Fred Couples, Fred Funk, and Love.

By the end of his round, Woods had jumped over six other golfers to find himself the leader in the clubhouse. Love caught him with a hard-earned 67, which featured an eagle on 15 and a birdie on 16 to tie Woods, though he failed to close out the tournament with a missed 12-footer on 17 and a two-putt par to force a playoff.

Playing the 18th hole to open the playoff, Love teed off first and hit his wood driver into the middle of the fairway. Woods, who had used a two-iron off the tee just a short time earlier, went with a 3-wood and his ball came to rest in the fairway just shy of Love’s. Now able to take the first shot at the green, Woods applied pressure to Love by hitting his 9-iron approach from 162 yards to 20 feet from the hole.

Love needed an answer, but instead hit his 8-iron long and his ball wound up in the back-left bunker. He hit a solid third shot out of the bunker, which rolled six feet past the hole. With a chance to close out the match with a birdie, Woods put too much gas on his putt and missed to the right. Then, Woods employed some match play strategy and chose to finish out the hole with a short putt for par which he successfully drained. With a chance to extend the playoff, Love barely missed his par putt to the left.

Woods had won the first of his 82 PGA TOUR wins in just his fifth tournament as a professional and became the first sponsor-invite to win on TOUR since Phil Mickelson in 1991. The rewards for his victory now seem modest in the career of one sports’ most accomplished athletes: first-place prize money of $297,000, an exemption on the TOUR for the rest of 1996, as well as 1997 and 1998, and automatic entry to play in the 1997 Masters.

 “We knew he was going to win… I just didn’t want it to be today,” Love said afterwards. “We know how good he is. We know he’s the next force on the TOUR, the next great player. We were all trying to postpone the inevitable.”

Veteran golf reporter Gary Van Sickle may have foreshadowed best what was to come next, writing in Sports Illustrated: “Golf as we know it is over. He’s not just a promising young pro anymore: he’s an era.”

By Travis Puterbaugh, Former Curator