Memories from players who competed against Tiger Woods and the shots that stand out in honor of Woods turning 50 on Dec. 30:
“He's in grass I promise you is this deep,” Price said, holding his hands about 6 inches apart. “It was 230 yards to the flag. I was in the fairway and I hit a hybrid just on the front edge of the green. He hit 5-iron out of there and pitched it on the green, and I have no idea ... in a million years, I couldn't hit that shot. The ball came out like it was in the fairway and pitched in the green about 12 feet. The guy was never in trouble.”
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FILE - Tiger Woods hits his second shot on the 18th hole from a fairway bunker during completion of his second round of the PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club, in Chaska Minn., Saturday, Aug. 17, 2002. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)
Jim Furyk watches his tee shot on the second hole during the final round of the PNC Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
Stewart Cink, right, and his son Reagan Cink, discuss a tee shot on the second hole during the final round of the PNC Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
Nick Price, left, of Zimbabwe, discusses their putt with his son Greg Price on the first green during the final round of the PNC Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
FILE - Tiger Woods watches his approach shot to the 18th green during the third round of the U.S. Open golf tournament Saturday, June 19, 2010, at the Pebble Beach Golf Links, in Pebble Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
“I was in the last group with him in Atlanta on a par 5. We both had 265 to the hole, and this was one when they were wound balls. I laid a 3-wood right of the green on the 10th at TPC Sugarloaf. And from the same distance — and I wasn't short — Tiger hits 2-iron straight up in the air, and it was like the same shape as a 7-iron for me, flew onto the green and released like this far (indicating 2 feet). And it was then I was like, ‘OK, he just hit his 2-iron as far as I hit my 3-wood, and it flew as high as my 7-iron and it stopped like a pitching wedge.’ This is a skill set I don't have.”
“I would think the shot he hit into Bridgestone on the 16th as one of the greatest shots I've ever seen, one of the craziest shots I've ever seen, one of the most spectacular shots I've ever seen, and pretty close to the only shot I feel in my career that got into my head.”
(Woods was on the slope of a bunker and hit 8-iron to 2 feet on a brick-hard green. Harrington from the fairway hit a shot that one-hopped over the green).
“It was the only shot that really went deeply ... it wasn't just his good shot, it affected my next shot. I went long and chipped it in the water. And then I didn't realize I should have dropped it where I was. It panicked me. That's how good that golf shot was.”
“I could not have been more nervous ever in my life. Both of us hit good drives. The pin was middle back — I remember it clear as can be. I hit it 20 feet short of the pin where you had to hit it. He hit it and one-hopped over the green. I looked at my dad like, ‘I can’t believe he hit it there.' You can't get up-and-down. It's a bogey right off the bat. And he hit the most amazing chip. It had more spin than I've ever seen on a short chip. That thing was a foot from the hole when it finished. I'd never seen anybody pull off a shot like that. I didn't know that was even possible.”
“The 17th hole got redone every other year. This was a new green, the green was rock-hard and the pin was front left. We hit our tee shots right next to each other — hit 3-wood, I hit driver. I hit this 5-iron as hard and as high as I could. It lands by the hole and bounds 25 feet by the hole. He hits this shot way up in the air and it was coming down like a parachute, lands by the cup and bounces 2 feet and stops. I figure he must have hit a 7-iron. I said, ‘Tiger, what club was that?’ He said, ‘That was a little, three-finger 5-iron.’ He just filleted it in there. When I think of him, that’s what I think of. Only one guy could hit that shot.”
“We were paired together and he hit a shot to a downhill, long, skinny green with a little tail in back left, and the pin was back there over a bunker. I hit this pretty 5-iron, it hit hard and took a big tumble and just trickled through the green. He took 6-iron and hit this high cut against a little breeze, and it came down soft and hit it to 3 feet. I just laughed. I couldn’t hit that shot. I immediately looked at the two guys we were playing (Vijay Singh and Stuart Appleby) and I’m sure I had the biggest grin on my face because I was like, ‘Well, we know you can’t hit that shot so what are we going to do now?’ I couldn’t hit it, they couldn’t hit it, just my partner.”
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
FILE - Tiger Woods hits his second shot on the 18th hole from a fairway bunker during completion of his second round of the PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club, in Chaska Minn., Saturday, Aug. 17, 2002. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)
Jim Furyk watches his tee shot on the second hole during the final round of the PNC Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
Stewart Cink, right, and his son Reagan Cink, discuss a tee shot on the second hole during the final round of the PNC Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
Nick Price, left, of Zimbabwe, discusses their putt with his son Greg Price on the first green during the final round of the PNC Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
FILE - Tiger Woods watches his approach shot to the 18th green during the third round of the U.S. Open golf tournament Saturday, June 19, 2010, at the Pebble Beach Golf Links, in Pebble Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
President Donald Trump said Thursday Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general.
Trump in a social media post named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, though three people familiar with the matter have said he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick.
It marks the end of a contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president’s perceived enemies.
Here is the latest:
Bondi released a statement Thursday, which read:
“Over the next month I will be working tirelessly to transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche before moving to an important private sector role I am thrilled about, and where I will continue fighting for President Trump and this Administration.
Leading President Trump’s historic and highly successful efforts to make America safer and more secure has been the honor of a lifetime, and easily the most consequential first year of the Department of Justice in American history.
Since February 2025, we have secured the lowest murder rate in 125 years, secured first-ever terrorism convictions against members of Antifa, shattered domestic and transnational gangs across the country, taken custody of more than 90 key cartel figures, and won 24 favorable rulings at the Supreme Court.
I remain eternally grateful for the trust that President Trump placed in me to Make America Safe Again.”
Democrats in Congress were celebrating the firing of the attorney general, whose appearance on Capitol Hill often featured bitter exchanges with Democratic lawmakers. But they also said that new leadership alone would not be enough to halt the Trump administration’s efforts to remake the Department of Justice to do his bidding.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement that under Bondi’s leadership, the Justice Department “has lost centuries of professional experience, willfully violated federal law and judicial orders alike” and added that her firing is “not enough to restore the credibility of the Justice Department.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that Bondi’s “legacy will be the weaponization of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency for Donald Trump’s personal benefit, but apparently even she didn’t go far enough to appease him.”
The Republican had only nice things to say about Bondi in an emailed statement, noting a drop in violent crime during her tenure and her Justice Department’s responsiveness to congressional oversight requests.
“The Judiciary Committee stands ready to advance President Trump’s next Attorney General nominee,” Grassley said.
The attorney general was facing a subpoena to appear before the House Oversight Committee on April 14 as lawmakers look into how the Department of Justice handled the release of the case files on Jeffrey Epstein.
The chair of the committee, Rep. James Comer, said in a statement that he would survey Republicans on the committee on whether they still wanted to enforce the subpoena.
Democrats quickly called on the committee to follow through on the subpoena. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement that Bondi “will not escape accountability and remains legally obligated to appear before our Committee under oath.”
Bondi was subpoenaed last month to appear before the Republican-led Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and face questions over the Justice Department’s sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and release of the related files.
Mace, who sits on the committee, said in a statement Thursday that Bondi “will be appearing” in two weeks because the “DOJ still hasn’t complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.”
Past attorney generals generally took pains to maintain an arm’s-length distance from the White House to protect the impartiality of investigations and prosecutions.
But Bondi postured herself as Trump’s chief supporter and protector, praising and defending him in congressional hearings and placing a banner with his face on the exterior of Justice Department headquarters.
She called for an end to the “weaponization” of law enforcement that she said occurred under the Biden administration, though her critics said she was the one who had politicized the agency to do the president’s bidding.
The Justice Department’s review and release of Epstein files frustrated members of Congress, who accused the department of hiding certain documents, over-redacting files and, in other cases, failing to redact sensitive information about the victims.
The department denied that it redacted documents in order to protect people and that it improperly withheld certain material. Still, it caused a series of headaches for the Trump administration.
“Thank you to President Trump for the trust and the opportunity to serve as Acting Attorney General,” Blanche wrote in a post on X, after saying that Bondi led the department with “strength and conviction.”
“We will continue backing the blue, enforcing the law, and doing everything in our power to keep America safe,” Blanche said.
Blanche is a former federal prosecutor who worked as Trump’s criminal defense attorney in two cases brought by the department under President Joe Biden’s administration.
He was also a key figure on the president’s defense team in the hush money case against Trump in New York.
Blanche became second in command behind Bondi at the Justice Department last year.
“We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, after saying she’s been a “loyal friend.”
Trump said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will serve as acting attorney general.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, in response to earlier reports that President Donald Trump was considering ousting Attorney General Pam Bondi, said in a statement Thursday: “I welcome it.”
“Bondi handled the Epstein Files in a terrible manner and seriously undermined President Trump,” said Mace in the statement, whose long been critical of the justice department over the release and review of the Jefferey Epstein files.
President Donald Trump said Thursday that Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general, ending the contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president’s perceived enemies.
The announcement follows months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation that made Bondi the target of angry conservatives even with her close relationship with Trump. She also struggled to satisfy Trump’s demands to prosecute his political rivals, with multiple investigations rejected by judges or grand juries.
The former Florida attorney general came into office last year pledging that she would not play politics with the Justice Department, but she quickly started investigations of Trump foes, sparking an outcry that the law enforcement agency was being wielded as a tool of revenge to advance the president’s political and personal agenda.
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FILE - Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks with reporters during a news conference at the Department of Justice, Nov. 19, 2025, in Washington, as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, listens. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, file)
FILE - Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche meets with reporters in Washington, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)
FILE - Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
