10. Tiger the Destroyer (2000)
This will stand as a testament to the force majeur that was Tiger Woods at his best. He didn’t just win the US Open in record breaking fashion, he absolutely destroyed the finest field in golf. This, the one hundredth US Open, was played in an atmosphere of near mourning, given the death of the defending champion Payne Stewart. There were many ceremonies and individual tributes to Stewart that week, but frankly, there should also have been similar ceremonies to commemorate the murder of the entire field by Woods. Having got lucky with the weather on day one, Tiger scored a stunning 65 to lead by one. By the end of day two, he had added a 69 and was leading by six. Saturday was when the course got its own back, and howling winds made scoring extremely difficult. Ernie Els scored the only sub-par round of the day – an unbelievable 68 (the average score was almost ten shots higher). Woods overcame an early triple bogey to get back to level par for the round, an excellent score in the circumstances, which gave him a ten-shot lead and fifty-four hole scoring record. On Sunday, Woods went to town, his 67 being the low round of the day. He finished at twelve-under and won by fifteen shots, becoming the first player in US Open history to finish double-digits under par. His winning margin remains the highest ever in a major.
