In his prime, Tiger Woods seemed invincible on the golf course. But that doesn’t mean he was unbeatable in all sports in his peak years. He learned that lesson the hard way when he faced off against MLB Hall of Famer John Smoltz in live batting practice.
How do we know this? That’s thanks to the PGA Tour Champions, who recently released a video of Smoltz dishing on the fun story next to fellow Atlanta Braves legends Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux.
The story begins back in the early 2000s, when Smoltz was on the back-half of his historic career with the Braves, and Woods was in the midst of the most dominant stretch of golf ever.
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Smoltz revealed that Tiger had already made it known that he wanted to take at-bats against him, so when Smoltz was throwing a simulated game at an empty Braves stadium, he called Tiger up.
“He had always wanted to face me, and didn’t know how we would be able to pull that off. But I just happened to have a rehab sim game, and there was no one in the stadium. And I said, ‘Hey Tiger, you’re in luck, if you want to face me no one is going to be there, the team is on the road, I’ll be pitching a couple of innings, you can come and take an at-bat or two.'” Smoltz shared. “And he goes, ‘That’d be great.'”
So Tiger made his way to Atlanta, and the two sports legends got ready for their face-off. But before they began, Tiger explicitly set one important rule for Smoltz: give me everything you’ve got.
“We set it up, you know, and he goes, ‘No. 1 rule… give me everything you have. Don’t hold back.'” Smoltz said.
But Smoltz was worried about injuring one of the greatest golfers who ever lived.
“I said, ‘Tiger, this is the deal, I’m not worried about hitting you, I’m just worried about your thumb getting jammed when you hit. That could keep you out of golf for a while.'”
That didn’t seem to concern Tiger, who at that point had already completed the “Tiger Slam” and was well on his way to 15 major wins.
“Well, he’s a great athlete, and he took his batting practice, and he got in there, and it would be like me trying to think that I could make the cut at the Masters this past year. No chance,” Smoltz explained.
But toward the end of the at-bats, Smoltz broke Tiger’s one explicit rule, and Tiger was not happy about it.
“At the end of the at-bats, I gave him fastballs that he could hit. And when he found that out he got really mad,” Smoltz revealed. “But he declared himself 1-4 with a walk. So I let him roll with it.
“That would have been probably after 2000 when I was making a transition back to maybe starting. He got in full uniform, we got the picture. It was a blast, you know.”
