AUGUSTA, Ga. — As it turns out, even Tiger Woods needs swing advice sometimes.
On Masters Sunday, it also turns out there’s only one person worthy of giving it: His son Charlie.
Woods wandered out to the practice range at Augusta National on Sunday fresh off a career-low. He’d just carded the worst score of his major championship career on Masters Saturday, a 10-over 82 that was so out of sorts, it was hard for even Tiger to make sense of what went wrong.
“The fact that I was not hitting it very good or putting well,” he said, offering a round summary of the entirety of his game when asked about his weaknesses on Saturday. “Just hit the ball in all the places that I know I shouldn’t hit it. And I missed a lot of putts. Easy, makable putts. I missed a lot of them.”
But then he was there, wearing his familiar Sunday red (and Sun Day Red), and there was hope again that he might turn his Masters around. First, because it’s hard not to believe in Tiger when witnessing him stripe golf balls at the range. And second, because a familiar face wandered out closely behind him.
Charlie Woods, the 15-year-old chip-off-the-old-block, had arrived on the range on Sunday morning as moral support to his father … and with hopes of helping the 15-time major champ figure things out.
The two went through a lengthy warm-up together, with Charlie — clad in fresh Nike AF1s and an SDR-logo’d hat — offering tips on the state of his father’s game throughout. Billy Kratzert, who was working on the Masters featured group broadcast at the time, said that Charlie appeared to be encouraging his father to have the club “exit to the left,” keeping the arms from running off and allowing the body to keep rotating.
Before we get any further, we should note that Charlie is uniquely qualified to offer such advice. First, because he has the greatest golfer of this generation as his lifetime swing coach, so he understands the nuances and intricacies of his game more than nearly anyone. And second, because he’s become a pretty talented young golfer himself — playing at the highest levels of the junior golf world and even landing a special exemption to Monday qualify for a PGA Tour event.
The two worked through the swing checkpoint for a few minutes before it was time for Tiger to head off to the first tee box. A few minutes later, the five-time green jacket winner teed off on the first hole at Augusta National for his final round.
It has not been a kind week for Tiger Woods at the Masters, who wound up on the wrong side of the tee time draw and whose game seemed to struggle as the week progressed. But the appearance of his son Charlie on Sunday — just days after Woods told reporters that his son had turned down the chance to come play a practice round here with Dad — was a welcome sight.
Though he’ll hardly admit it, Tiger is celebrating a special kind of Masters memory on this Sunday, becoming the first player in tournament history to make 24 consecutive cuts. And what better to help him end the week on a high note than some range time with his son?
Well, a low score. But this surely helps too.
