Charlie Woods is struggling for the first time in the US Junior Amateur but is still showing
Charlie Woods at the US Junior Amateur at Oakland Hills on Monday.
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Playing golf in a fishbowl is not easy.
Ask Tiger Woods.
“You get a lot of attention,” he once said. “It's really hard.”
Woods was 15 when he shared that insight. The year was 1991, and he was a young talent on the rise that the game rarely, if ever, saw. By 2, he had already appeared on national TV with Bob Hope. At age 3, he broke 50 on nine holes, and, at age 8, he broke 70 on 18. At age 15, Tiger won his record sixth Junior World Golf Championship, firing a final-round 69 at Torrey Pines South on fire. . After that victory, Dana Haddad wrote in a book Los Angeles Times, “Don't let his big eyes, bony arms and strong knees fool you. Eldrick 'Tiger' Woods of Cypress, just a 15-year-old baby, is golf's baby boy.”
You know what followed: three US Junior Amateur titles followed by three US Amateur victories. 82 PGA Tour wins, including 15 majors. Not included in that stat line is another number that is very important to Woods: 2, as the number of children he has — a daughter, Sam, now 17, and a son, Charlie, 15.
Sam has never played golf, at least not seriously. But Charlie has grown up, becoming a formidable talent in his own right. He's a sophomore at The Benjamin School, in Palm Beach, Fla., where alongside Justin Leonard's son, Luke, and a handful of other freshmen who could beat the best golfer at your club, he played on the boys' team last fall. won his fourth state championship title. (Jack Nicklaus' two sons, Gary and Michael, also attended The Benjamin School.)
In Florida's US Junior Amateur qualifier last month, Charlie was three-over in two holes. Undaunted, he made a vow to himself: “I just told myself that I wouldn't make any more bogeys or doubles.” Charlie played the next 16 holes in 4 under and signed off with a 71 under. The return earned him a medal and a place in his first US Junior Amateur, at the historic Oakland Hills Country Club, near Detroit, where Charlie's father, as a professional. amateur, made the cut at the 1996 US Open.
Golf has an uncanny way of producing full-circle moments; it's one of the game's many charms. But Charlie playing in his first US Junior feels meaningful, given his father's rich history in the event. For the young Woods, it's also the latest stage in his coming-out party: playing in a state championship is one thing, as is watching on a nationally televised show like the PNC Championship or trying to qualify for a Monday PGA Tour event. . But the US Junior is at another level for now: a national tournament run by the United States Golf Association. Top shot for junior golfers. Just being fit is a huge achievement.
Which brings us back to the fishbowl.
Charlie, at 15 years old, now knows what his father knew when he was 15: Charlie's competitive rounds are different for him than those of his peers, especially when Tiger is around. More eyes. More scrutiny. More distractions. At the PGA Tour qualifier Charlie entered in February, fans poured onto the fairways to be near him, some asking for autographs mid-round. “You can't stop anybody from coming, and when Tiger is there, it's crazy,” Charlie's high school coach, Toby Harbeck, told me last year about the scene at one of his high school tournaments. “Trust me, there are people in the trees taking pictures. The microphone is in his face.”
Charlie's attention was evident in the Oakland Hills on Monday morning. As he left the North Course's 1st hole just before 8:30, a crowd of several hundred, phone calls raised, surrounded the tee box – this in a tournament where teams rarely attract more than a dozen fans. Standing just behind to the right of the tea is Tiger, wearing a white hat and a red Sun Day polo shirt. It was hard to miss him because he was standing on the berm, which elevated him above the rest of the onlookers. “I've been in a gallery like this before,” Chase Kyes, a high school senior who grew up in Alabama and one of Charlie's two teammates, later said, “but he's never played in front of a gallery like this.”
Charlie hit an iron on the par-4 1st and opened with three pars, but his strong play would not last. On the 200-yard par-3 4th, he needed three shots to get to the green and make double. The tiger was walking, facing the side of tea and greenery. Charlie has gotten used to his presence, but his teammates weren't there. “I looked at him a few times, but I really tried not to,” Kyes said of Tiger. “There is a lot of pressure on his name.”
Charlie was a stroke back on the par-5, but then completed a bogey-par-bogey-double nine to reach 40, the same score his father shot on the first nine holes at the 1997 Masters before falling back into history. overcome. But this round, for Charlie, will not produce such fireworks. After nine, he made three doubles, two bogies and one birdie to shoot 42 and finish at 12 over. With 60 players shooting par or better on Monday, Charlie may have shot himself out of the tournament.
Charlie didn't speak to reporters after the round, but his teammates did. Two things seemed to hit them: the weight on Charlie's shoulders, and the excitement they had playing in front of such a large gallery.
“The pressure on him is unbelievable,” said Davis Ovard, a freshman at Baylor who was Charlie's partner. “I can't see myself in his situation.”
Ovard, who shot 73, said he saw more of Tiger during practice on Sunday than he did on Monday. “He was just going down the fairways with us and the greens with us, and we were talking about the course,” Ovard said. “It was crazy.”
Kyes said he loved feeling the rush of playing in front of the fans. “He's good at this game, especially for young kids like us,” he said. “I hope it will be the last time we are in front of the crowd like this. The more you get used to it, the better you will be.”
Charlie is definitely getting used to it. Maybe you already are. What other choice does he have?
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