The last time Tiger Woods held a share of a first-round lead in a professional golf tournament was more than five years ago. The setting: the 2019 Zozo Championship in Chiba, Japan, where Woods and Gary Woodland shot matching 64s to co-lead after 18 holes. Woods would go on to win by three that week, claiming his 82nd PGA Tour title, which tied him with Sam Snead atop the Tour’s all-time wins list.
No one would or should mistake the PNC Championship — a PGA Tour Champions-sanctioned event that pits 20 parent-child teams in a 36-hole scramble — for a 72-hole PGA Tour event like the Zozo, but, man, only the most grizzled cynic could not be moved by seeing WOODS back atop a leaderboard, as it was Saturday at the PNC.
When the dust settled at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Tiger and his 15-year-old son, Charlie, had made 12 birdies and not a single bogey or worse. Their resulting 59 has them in pole position at the halfway point, knotted with teams Langer and Singh, with the Lehmans and Harringtons nipping at their heels.
There was reason to believe the Woods boys, resplendent in their matching Sun Day Red gear, would not be competitive this week. For one, Tiger is still recovering from a September back surgery — his sixth — and still has “a long way to go,” he said Friday. He added, ‘I’m not going to feel what I’m used to feeling. The recovery has gotten to be the hardest part. But over the course of rounds, weeks, months, it gets harder.’” Woods’ right leg, which he badly injured in a 2021 car wreck, also remains a significant impairment. Playing 18 holes is one thing, walking 18 is quite another.
There’s also the questionable state of Woods’ game, which he described to Golf Channel Friday as “very rusty,” adding, “I don’t have my feels and my trajectory is off.”
Here’s the thing, though: There was also reason to believe the Woods boys would be competitive this week, and not just because Tiger is one of the fiercest competitors to ever stalk the earth, the state of his game be damned. For one, Tiger and Charlie aren’t exactly staring down Scottie, Rory and Bryson this week. Their opponents include the likes of 13-year-old Will McGee (Annika Sorenstam’s son) and 89-year-old Gary Player; Tiger and Charlie also have only 19 teams to beat, and the scramble format allows Tiger, should he feel the need, to take off a swing and there.
Team Woods also has something else going for it: Charlie, who is playing in his fifth PNC this week, is a year older and wiser than he was in December 2023. A year better, too. Charlie is a sophomore at the Benjamin School, in South Florida, where he plays on the golf team alongside Justin Leonard’s son, Luke. A year ago, the team won the state title. This year, Charlie lowered his stroke average by four shots, to 70.75, his coach, Toby Harbeck, told me the other day. Harbeck said that if anything holds Charlie back, it’s his decision-making on the course, but he plays with a drive and intensity right out of his old man’s playbook. Charlie burns to win.
On Saturday, Charlie and his father made it look easy, though neither player seemed awed by their performances. “Felt pretty good,” Charlie said. “I didn’t hit it great, but Dad saved me on a couple of them and I rolled them in.”
Unsurprisingly, Tiger was also quick to give his playing partner credit. “We’re trying to pull off each and every shot for each other, and to ham-and-egg, and I think we did that great pretty much the entire day,” Tiger said. “And Charlie made pretty much most of the putts.”
Tiger reiterated that his own game is “rusty,” but there was at least one highly encouraging sign: Tiger walked all 18 holes, just as he’d done in Friday’s practice round. He is permitted to use a cart at the PNC but elected not to. If you’re looking for indicators that his recovery is progressing, surely this development qualifies, even if the flat Ritz-Carlton layout isn’t exactly Augusta National.
“Preparing for competitive play is different,” Tiger said Friday. “That takes months, weeks. But it starts with each and every day. You just do the little things correctly, and they add up. From the moment you get up, just do all the little things, the mundane, the things you know you have to do.”
If we know one thing about Tiger, he does not take those little things lightly. The same will be true of how he prepares for Sunday’s second and final round at the PNC. Tiger has been saying all week that he’s just here to have fun, and Charlie echoed a similar sentiment after his round Saturday. But make no mistake, the Woods’ also traveled up to Orlando to win. And now that they’re well positioned to do so, the competitive juices are flowing. The nerves are there, too. Tiger said he felt butterflies on the first tee Saturday.
Toward the end of his and Charlie’s post-round press scrum, Tiger was asked, now that and his son are deep in the hunt, whether his competitiveness would kick in.
Anyone who has even a passing knowledge of Tiger’s approach to the game knew exactly how he’d respond, but, gosh, after all these years of off- and on-course struggles, it felt good to hear him say it anyway.
“It’s always there,” Tiger said.
