Try convincing anyone who watched the PNC Championship that Justin Thomas and his father, Mike, won the tournament that pairs PGA and LPGA golfers with family members.
Tiger Woods and his 11-year-old son, Charlie, won the event for anyone watching in amazement at the Tiger cub’s advanced game and in sentimentality to see them hugging after an eagle, Charlie fist-pumping like his father after a birdie and the matching classic Woods’ red shirt on Sunday.
The Woods duo finished in seventh place, five strokes behind the Thomas pairing, but had won the weekend with their presence.
“I don’t think words can describe it,” Woods told reporters in a press conference, asking for Charlie not to be interviewed. “Just the fact that we were able to have this experience together, Charlie and I. It’s memories for a lifetime.”
The Tiger tiny twin carried himself with great poise in front of national cameras and respect among famous golf pros, even heading to the Orlando Ritz-Carlton Golf Club driving range after the Saturday round. He talked to the ball (“Come on, be the number”) as his father would after a tee shot and kept more of a game face than his father, who could not hold back smiles.
“He hit some of the most incredible golf shots,” said Woods, whose approach shots were bested by his son a few times in the scramble format.
After losing his own father in 2006, the experience hits the elder Woods a little differently, sharing a different sort of father-son experience on the golf course on the brink of his 45th birthday. Charlie only recently shifted his sporting attention from soccer to golf and won a junior tournament in August.
“I’m just making sure Charlie has the time of his life,” Woods said. That goal is admirable because living up to the legacy is impossible.
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