Tiger Woods Last Major Win is Ancient History: 7 Things That Have Happened Since June 2008

Tiger Woods last won a major in June 16, 2008, beating Rocco Mediate in an 18-hole playoff. Two days later, he announced his knee injury would keep him out the rest of the year. As much as later extracurricular affairs have been offered as a neat starting point to his struggles, it’s more complicated, and playing through that injury to achieve what is, still now, his final major win was a factor.

Time seems to fly in Internet Years, much like Dog Years. News becomes old in hours, stories disappear into the ether in days, and things that happened years ago seem to belong to another world. The progress of this website is just one example of the changing landscape. Jason McIntyre was still known only by the pseudonym The Big Lead, Stephen Douglas was a commenter on the site named “Cousins of Ron Mexico” (and people knew what that referenced!), I had only two kids and was working as a lawyer.

I’ve written about Tiger’s chances in the past, and even those now seem distant. He seems so far removed from the player that we knew in June of 2008.

How long ago was it in sports and cultural terms? Here are a few things that happened around the time–or since–Tiger’s last major victory.

LeBron James had yet to win his first MVP award. (or second, third, and fourth).

Since Tiger’s last victory, LeBron has won four MVP awards, taken his talents to South Beach, returned his talents to Cleveland, and appeared in five NBA Finals.

Facebook had just overtaken MySpace and still trailed Blogger among social media sites

Darren Rovell had yet to join Twitter, and had yet to post about his lunch or about how much an athlete made per [randomly selected measurement of time/quantity]. There’s a pretty good chance that most of the people you know joined one of their currently most used social media platforms since Tiger last won a major.

Brett Favre was still retired … from the Green Bay Packers

Brett Favre had retired in March 2008 from the Green Bay Packers. Aaron Rodgers had yet to start a game in the NFL the last time Tiger won a major.

By June 2008, Favre was trying to make a comeback with the Packers, who had moved on, and a month later he would unretire, and be traded to the Jets.

Will Leitch was still at Deadspin, Rick Reilly had just joined ESPN

The sports media landscape has changed entirely. Websites that weren’t in existence are major entities. Bloggers no longer get derided for working in their mother’s basements, and major media companies emulate the old blogs.

It was so long ago that Rick Reilly had just formally joined ESPN in June of 2008, and Will Leitch had yet to officially move on from Deadspin.

Takes weren’t even as hot, then. Cold Pizza had changed to First Take just a year earlier.

Spain went on the most dominant International Soccer run

Spain were the perennial underachievers of World Football entering June of 2008. They had never won a major tournament, despite plenty of talent. In the weeks after Tiger’s victory, Spain would end that by going on to win Euro 2008, and then follow it up by winning the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 European Championship. That historic stretch ended with last year’s group stage defeat at the hands of the Netherlands.

Other examples of teams changing their championship fortunes in dramatic fashion since 2008? The San Francisco Giants had not won a World Series since 1954, when they were in New York. The Chicago Blackhawks had not won the Stanley Cup since 1961.

Justin Bieber was just a Youtube sensation 

That’s right, Beliebers weren’t even much of a thing then. It was a much simpler time.

Chip Kelly was an assistant coach, Pete Carroll was at USC

Oh, and Bobby Petrino had yet to coach a game–or take a motorcycle ride–at Arkansas. Charlie Weis was still at Notre Dame. Jim “What’s Your Deal” Harbaugh had yet to have a winning season at a Division I school. Nick Saban had 7 career victories at Alabama.