Charlie Woods and Justin Thomas during Saturday's PNC Championship.
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Like father, like son. Like father’s smack, like’s son’s smack.
Justin Thomas, on the 352-yard, par-4 13th at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, dropped his tee shot into a right fairway bunker. He’d find a small white strip of paper dropped behind it. He picked the note up, flipped it over, read it, then laughed to his dad, Mike, his playing partner in the PNC Championship, a golf pro-family member event.
Its message? Two words. Two 11-year-old-trash-talking-a-PGA-Tour-superstar words.
Thomas turned toward the messenger. About 50 yards ahead, Charlie Woods tipped his cap.
“That’s next level. That is absolute next level,” analyst Justin Leonard said Saturday during NBC’s broadcast. “Look at the look on Charlie’s face.”
Charlie, the 11-year-old son of 15-time major winner Tiger Woods, was playing a good game in his much-anticipated television debut. Team Woods was eight-under par in the scramble event heading into 13th. Charlie’s drive on the hole was so good that his pop didn’t even bother hitting.
According to Golfweek, Mike Thomas had left the note for Charlie during a pro-am earlier in the week. And Charlie saw his shot to return it. Both teams would par the 13th. But Charlie aced it.
“For some reason, Charlie just always wants to beat me, it doesn’t matter what it is,” Thomas said during the Mayakoba Golf Classic earlier this month. “Although he’s never beaten me in golf or a putting contest, he still talks trash just like his dad. It will be fun. We’ll have that like inner tournament within a tournament, trying to shut his little mouth up, but it will be fun.”
Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.
