At simply 13 years outdated, Charlie Woods’ celebrity has taken over the PNC Championship.
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ORLANDO, Fla. — It was sure to occur finally.
Charlie Woods, the lookalike son of the best golfer of this era, couldn’t stay a secret endlessly. Not with that charisma, and particularly not with that golf swing.
But it’s honest to surprise if anybody meant for him to be fairly this well-known.
On Saturday afternoon and all week at the PNC Championship, the youthful Woods has been arguably extra standard than his 15-time main championship-winning father. You know him, proper? The individuals right here at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club would possibly love Tiger Woods, however they adore younger Charlie.
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It has been unattainable to trace the variety of people who’ve tried to draw Charlie’s consideration by means of two days in Orlando. From the second the 13-year-old Woods arrived on property on Friday, these on-site appeared decided to make him hear their voices. Some screamed in his path, chanting his identify and sharing their adulation. (“We love you” was a frequent providing from the gallery, although it remained to be seen how, precisely, a 13-year-old with a whopping whole of three public appearances had earned that love.) Some witnessed the scene and retreated to humor.
“How many of you are out here to watch my dad warm up?” Justin Thomas teased on Saturday morning whereas the plenty encircled.
Others resorted to extra direct types of communication. On the eighth tee field Friday, a grown lady begged Charlie for a photograph. Later, one other bargained for a “quick autograph.” On the seventeenth tee on Saturday, a bunch of vacationers at a course-adjacent rental property sported cutouts emblazoned with Charlie’s face.
It’s typically odd to bear witness to the cult of celebrity, however significantly so when the topic of that celebrity is nonetheless three years away from receiving his driver’s license. Tiger’s buddy and longtime supervisor, Rob McNamara, caddie Joe LaCava Jr. and PGA Tour safety have every made efforts to maintain Charlie’s focus away from the restricted variety of followers in attendance. Walking close to Charlie, it’s simple to know why so many members of Tiger’s staff really feel the compulsion to guard him.
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“Everybody pays a certain price for everything they get in life,” Padraig Harrington stated of the youthful Woods on Thursday. “The more famous you are, the better you’re doing, you’re going to have to put up with that. Everything, all the good, all this, all this money we make out of golf, the lifestyle it’s given us, there’s always something you have to pay back, and sometimes it’s a lack of privacy, even for Paddy [his son] at times. But as I point out, we’d rather it that way because that’s why we’re doing so well.”
Charlie, to his credit score, has neither upset his courters, nor acknowledged them. In this regard, he has apparently taken properly to his father’s teaching. He is like Tiger in some ways, and his aptitude for the dramatic is actually certainly one of them. He’s a showoff, an entertainer. When the alternative to compete right here collectively first offered itself, Charlie was absolutely in favor of attending.
He arrived in Orlando in 2020 as an 11-year-old with few expectations and loads of intrigue. Almost instantly, he was a sensation — his astonishing potential, his distinctly Tiger-like mannerisms, his precocious smile.
Now, as a 13-year-old, it is clear his fame has morphed into one thing even greater. Rumors about his carry distance have been a subject of driving vary dialog early in the week. (“The question is whether he’ll carry it 260 or 280,” Harrington stated with a chuckle.) His obvious left ankle damage created headlines. On Saturday, his shoe choice was certainly one of the match’s trending subjects.
But whilst a golf sensation, whilst the baby of one other baby celebrity, and whilst an enthusiastic participant on this weekend’s proceedings, he’s nonetheless a 13-year-old. Is it unreasonable to ask that he be handled like one thing resembling one? Tiger absolutely understood the stakes of Charlie’s introduction to the world, however his look at the PNC was by no means meant to breed this.
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“He’s a great teammate. He’s my son. We have fun out there. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about,” Tiger stated Saturday. “It’s about us having an opportunity to bond. We do this at home all the time, and you guys are now seeing what we do all the time at home. We just have fun. We needle each other. We encourage each other. It goes back and forth.”
Inside the ropes, it’s clear the Woodses are usually not taken with celebrity. Even as the cameras and the crowds swarm, the relationship between Tiger and Charlie stays strikingly regular. They chortle collectively, they compete collectively and, far more typically, they roast each other.
“It just — it’s just an amazing relationship, and it just deepens the bond between father and son,” Tiger stated. “It’s been incredible over the years to be able to share this stage and this atmosphere with him.”
The ambiance will develop even larger on Sunday, when Team Woods (-13) enters tied for second, simply two strokes off the mark set by Thomas and his father, Mike. Should Tiger and Charlie mount a Sunday comeback, the legend of the youthful Woods will solely develop, and so too will the consideration upon him. In some ways, that is an inevitability. There is no returning to a time “before” Charlie Woods, simply as there’s no stopping the intrigue that surrounds his life.
Perhaps Charlie is prepared for it. He is as properly geared up as any 13-year-old alive to deal with what lies earlier than him. But maybe this isn’t about Charlie in any respect. After all, it was Charlie’s grandfather, Earl, who first questioned the similar.
“This is my treasure,” Earl stated in 1996 of his personal teenage prodigy. “Please accept it and use it wisely.”
We’ve been right here earlier than, sure, however perhaps this time we’ll be clever sufficient to pay attention.
