Tiger Woods may not be playing THE PLAYERS Championship 2025, but the PGA Tour has still included him on the course in a heartfelt tribute. The GOAT’s glorious putt on the 18th in THE PLAYERS Championship 2002 was one of the best strokes in the history of the competition. What looked like a nearly impossible stroke, swung like a pendulum on the green before sinking in the cup. That gave Woods a birdie and a place in the history books for hitting one of the most remarkable putts ever.

Unfortunately, Woods couldn’t make it to the competition this year. Despite receiving a personalized invitation from THE PLAYERS Championship officials, the 82x PGA Tour winner had to reject it due to health concerns. It was only a couple of days earlier that he revealed that he had gone through an Achilles Tendon surgery. As Woods recovers from the injury, he would be pleased to know that he is not completely left out of THE PLAYERS Championship 2025.

The PGA Tour has positioned the cup on the same spot as it was on the green in 2002 to pay tribute to the GOAT. In fact, the cup was also marked with “Tiger Woods 3/25/2002”. It also includes Gary Koch’s famous quote from the commentary as he saw the putt unravel. The cup also reads “‘Better than most!’ – Gary Koch”. The tweet of the same was shared by THE PLAYERS official X account a few minutes ago.

With the hole placed in the same spot, everyone on the course had the opportunity to recreate the iconic putt. And it turns out, someone did so. But it was not a professional PGA Tour pro.

Tiger Woods’s iconic 2002 THE PLAYERS Championship reCREATEd

A day before THE PLAYERS Championship began, TPC Sawgrass also hosted the 2025 Creator Classic. It was Grant Horvat who dominated the tournament, defeating his peers by 1 stroke. However, Nick Stubbe, a.k.a Fat Perez of the Bob Does Sport YouTube channel was the one who stole the spotlight during the event.

The content creator had the ball set up at approximately the same spot where Tiger Woods hit his famous putt from in 2002. Lining up the hole and channeling his inner GOAT, Stubbe hit a beautiful putt that almost seemed like a replication of Woods’ effort 23 years ago. Fat Perez sunk the ball the same way as the 15x major winner, recreating the iconic scenes from all those years ago. We can also consider this another tribute to Tiger Woods after the PGA Tour’s efforts for THE PLAYERS Championship 2025.

Nonetheless, it was quite a beautiful tribute by Jay Monahan & Co. for Tiger Woods, don’t you think?