The Masters Tournament, held annually at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, usually in April, is traditionally the first major championship of the season. The youngest golfer to win the tournament was Eldrick Tont Woods, universally known as ‘Tiger’ Woods, who was 21 years and 104 days old when he won the Green Jacket for the first time.
Woods first played in the Masters Tournament, as a 19-year-old amateur, in 1995, shooting 72, 72, 75 and 72 for a 72-hole total of 293 to finish leading amateur and tied forty-first overall. The following year, he qualified once again, as reigning US Amateur champion, but missed the cut after shooting 75, 75 for a 36-hole total of 150 or, in other words, five over par.
However, having won the US Amateur Championship for the third time in 1996, Woods turned professional on August 27 that year and, the following April, returned to Augusta National for his first major championship in the paid ranks. The rest, as they say, is history. Woods made an inauspicious start, dropping four shots in his first nine holes, but recovered to post rounds of 70, 66, 65 and 69 for a then-record 72-hole total of 270, or 18 under par; that particular record stood until 2020, when Dustin Johnson shot 65, 70, 65 and 68 for a 20-under-par total of 268.
Nine strokes ahead after 54 holes, Woods strolled to victory, eventually beating his nearest pursuer, former US Open champion Tom Kite, by a margin of 12 strokes, thereby setting a Masters record that still stands. Of course, he has since won the tournament another four times, in 2001, 2002, 2004 and, after a 15-year hiatus, in 2019.