Sam Woods, her dad says, is a soccer player. Even with a short-game setup in the backyard of their family’s Florida home, the 16-year-old mostly only watches the game where pop became a star.
“She does her own thing, which is soccer,” Tiger Woods said Saturday. “She’s committed to that.
“As far as golf, no, she really doesn’t. She’ll hang out in the backyard with us every now and again to have fun, but nothing competitive or serious.”
Completely fair enough. And Sam ‘hung out’ Saturday, during the first day of the PNC Championship, when she caddied for dad during the major winner-relative (mostly) lighthearted event. It was a warm moment. She did well, too, Tiger said.
But that was Saturday.
How would a caddie — any caddie — handle a Sunday arrival, though?
With a player with 15 majors to his name?
Dressed in the red shirt and black pants?
With the cameras rolling and the crazies riled up?
It says here Sam did that well, too. With a somewhat quirky, 1980s-based Tiger assist.
On Sunday, from the parking lot at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, Tiger and Sam started their walk. Tiger was dressed in the red and black; Sam was carrying the bag. Tiger stared ahead. Sam smiled. A PGA Tour social media worker was filming.
Closer to the course, other videographers and photographers joined. Fans shouted. One asked for an autograph: “Tiger, do you mind? I missed you on Friday.” An official cleared a path. A few steps in, Tiger turned to his daughter, though, and he offered this:
“Walk in the park.”
Sam smiled. A fan yelled, “Let’s go, Big Cat.” Tiger continued.
“Remember Top Gun? Walk in the park, Kazansky.”
For those unfamiliar, it was a line from the 1986 movie Top Gun. The Tom Cruise character told it to the Val Kilmer character.
And now Tiger was telling it to Sam, presumably to calm any nerves.
Later, the Peacock broadcast picked up on it.
Charlie Woods turns heads at the PNC. And he has some fun with 3 very bold words
“Sunday arrivals in that red and black for Tiger through the years,” announcer Dan Hicks said, “but this was a little different arrival. … He was arriving with his 16-year-old daughter, Sam, and he was quoting a movie from the past as he was having a conversation.”
“… Walk in the park, Kazansky,” Hicks continued. “Tiger is quoting the 1986 Top Gun movie, and I’m not sure it’s as if to say, ‘OK, keep focus; there’s a lot of attention on me and us, now with you on the bag. Or maybe the caddying responsibilities today, I’m not sure. It’s a walk in the park.”
“We were quoting Caddyshack yesterday,” analyst Peter Jacobsen said. “Now, what the heck?”
“Tiger likes to quote movies from time to time,” Hicks said.
Some questions here, right? Do the Woodses watch ’80s movies at home? What other sayings does the elder Woods use? At the least, it was a bit of a reveal.
It brought to mind, too, a moment from Tiger’s induction last year into the World Golf Hall of Fame. There, Sam introduced him, and she shared this:
She had never met Tiger’s dad, Earl — he died a year before she was born — but she said at the time: “I feel like I can hear his voice every day reminding me to ‘train hard, fight easy.’”
Apparently, Woods passed down some of the same lessons he learned growing up to his kids.
“This is an old special forces saying that he ingrained into my dad, who now says it to Charlie and I,” Sam said. “It not only teaches us that we have to put in the hard work to get what we want, but it’s that hard work that will pay off in the end.”
