Tiger Woods Is Once Again The Master of The Masters!

It took Tiger Woods 14 years, several surgeries and a lot of work, but the world's former number one golfer has finally come all the way back.

Tiger won his fifth Masters title, his first since 2005 and his first golf major title since 2008 after some agonizing near misses last year.   It is also the 15th Grand Slam major golf title he has won, putting him now only three wins away from catching golf legend Jack Nicklaus.   

Tiger after shooting a 67 in the third round to get him to -11 for the tournament, entered today's final round two strokes behind the leader Francesco Molinari.  It also put him in the final threesome of golfers with Molinari and Tony Finau who was also at -11 with him for the first time since 2007.

He and the remaining golfers because of the threat of bad weather at Augusta National, teed off early starting at 7:30 AM EDT in an ultimately successful attempt to get the final round in and avoid playing on Monday.  Tiger's group teed off at 9:20 AM.

Molinari led much of the day until double bogeys on holes 12 and 15 opened a window for Tiger to snatch the lead, and he pounced on it like back in the day Tiger.

Woods birdied the par 5 hole 13, the par 5 15th hole, and nearly got a hole in one on the par 3 16th hole for another birdie to build a two stroke lead with two holes to play on Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka.   After Koepka missed a birdie putt on 18 that would have put pressure on Woods to at least par the hole, Woods tapped a short putt in for a bogey that clinched his fifth green jacket.

He is now only one Masters win from tying Jack Nicklaus, and three Grand Slam titles away from tying Nicklaus for all time major titles with 18.

And it was a long time in coming.