“I don’t know how I did it. My ACL was gone. My leg was broken. When I finished the rounds, it was not fun to try and get my leg drained so I could play the next day. But these are all things I tried to do because I knew that was going to be my last event. I was going to have to have reconstruction on my ACL, so I was down for nine months, possibly 12. I put all my energy into winning one event and somehow pulled it off.”

The most meaningful testimony can only derive from Tiger Woods himself. That a decade has now passed since he claimed his 14th, and last, major championship would be a notable enough anniversary were it not for the incredible backdrop to his US Open triumph at Torrey Pines. Victory is not supposed to be so painful.

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That Rocco Mediate has declined multiple opportunities to be interviewed about the 2008 US Open is understandable. After Woods, left knee ligaments shredded and leg broken, slipped to a closing round of 73 – Mediate had made 71 – the widespread assumption was that the world No 1 had run his race. In those days, the second major of the year was subject to an 18-hole Monday play-off. With such a profound physical advantage, this was Mediate’s to lose.

Before Woods and Mediate reached that fifth day, onlookers had looked on with a level of wonder not commonly attached to even one of the most celebrated golfers in history. Woods, who had not walked 18 holes since finishing runner-up to Trevor Immelman at the Masters two months earlier, heard his leg snap while hitting a routine five‑iron in practice. He had silenced all doubters, including those within his own camp, by even appearing at the US Open. Rounds of 72, 68 – including a front nine of 30 – and 70 had ensured a one-stroke lead over Lee Westwood by Saturday evening. Nobody on the outside really knew the extent of Woods’s affliction.

Round three had been spent in the company of Robert Karlsson. Gareth Lord, now Henrik Stenson’s caddie, was afforded a close-up view of the Tiger phenomenon when on the bag of another Swede. There was, he admits, pre-round scepticism. “We all heard he was injured but you never really knew if he was injured or if it was just a story,” says Lord. “It wasn’t that big a thought for us because it was the second last match on Saturday of the US Open; we were trying to win. If anything, you thought: ‘If he is injured, that’s a help. It’s not good for the game but he’ll recover.’

“The rumours were that it was 50/50 for him to turn up every day but especially at that time, there was so much mystique around Tiger. You never knew where he stayed, never saw him out for a meal.”

What happened next became the stuff of sporting legend. “Within the first four holes you knew because if he tried to hit a normal shot, he just couldn’t do it,” Lord recalls. “The only thing he had off the tee was a genuine 30-yard cut. That didn’t seem to hurt him. The iron shots he could get away with a wee bit more but off the tee, he was in trouble unless he hit that big cut.

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“The amount of people inside the ropes, especially over the last few holes, was incredible. It was like a Ryder Cup. He was literally playing on one leg, what he was doing out there was freaky and people were desperate to see it. He would chip in, hole a 60ft putt…

“I remember the par-five 13th where he had hit it into a Portaloo off the tee, somehow hit the green from 70 yards wide of where we were, then holed from 65ft with 10-15ft of break. His putter was in the air with 20ft to go. I walked off the green and there were blokes crying in the crowd.

“On the 18th tee he set up to the ball, he was about to go, said ‘No’ and began wiggling his knee like an Elvis impersonator. You heard this ‘crack’ … Robert and I looked at each other. He then hit this sliding fade into the middle of the fairway. They both hit a five-wood to the back of the green. Robert misses, Tiger holes it for an eagle. On the 17th he had chipped in from a bunker he could barely get out of, Steve Williams had to help him.”

If the fact the shootout with Mediate entered sudden death after a tied 18 holes was cruel, it merely added to the sense of theatre. Woods prevailed, a tap-in four sufficient to claim a third US Open. “I threw everything I had,” the runner‑up said.

The intervening years for Woods have seen further injury distress and personal turmoil. It would be the greatest feat of a remarkable career should he add to his major haul. If he doesn’t, the final act of glory on such a stage will at least for ever serve as the key indicator of Woods’s ferocious will to win.