Charlie Woods just achieved something impossible

Charlie Woods is a winner.

He won one American Golf Association Junior Tournament on Wednesday that was sponsored by Taylormade and held at FlowingCentral Florida’s response to Dunes bandon. Many names known there. Charlie Woods, the son of Tiger and Elin, is only 16 years old, but you have been aware of him if you have followed this game closely for a while, for 16 years. His birth was news.

This is not an easy way to spend your life, and when you choose the same way-the Golf not competitive in paper-as your world-famous father is even harder. Which makes this victory of the extraordinary border line. Winning an Eyga event is not extraordinary. Dozens of different children will win an Eyga event before the year is over. But when your name is Charlie Woods, when millions have seen play golf now for several years of courtesy PNC championshipThe old daddy-son winter event, everything changes. Charlie Woods does not have the freedom that every young man deserves, whether or not to succeed in relative anonymity.

Considerationdo’s consideration of Charlie Woods, Golf, really must be through the prism of empathy.

Yes, he has had access to the best teachers, the best equipment, the strings and the best courses. He is thrown around this world on private planes and is educated in a Elite Private School. I consider these disadvantages not easy to overcome.

This is something Ben Hogan told Ken Venturi in a 1983 interview:

“I’m sorry for rich kids now. I really do it because they will never have the opportunity I have had. Because I know difficult things, and have had a hard day throughout my life, and I can treat hard things. They can’t. And every day I progressed was a joy to me, and I recognized it.”

Tiger Woods would understand every word of this, and so will Sam Snead and Byron Nelson, Bernhard Langer and Vijay Singh, Charlie Sifford and Casey Martin. Gary Player had a son, Wayne Player, who was good, but not good enough to do it in PGA Tour. Raymond Floyd, the same. Jack Nicklaus, the same.

If Charlie Woods becomes good enough to be a productive member of a Division I College Golf team, it’s half a miracle. Because it requires so much work and dedication to be able to shoot 72 in a difficult course, pencil in hand, people looking, day after day.

With rounds 70, 65 and 66, Charlie Woods won with three. (Matt Kuchar’s son, Cameron, had a T10 conclusion, with rounds 71, 70 and 69.) If he is really, really lucky, Charlie Woods will have what millions of us have, a game he can enjoy playing for the rest of his life. But it’s funny, to think that our Golf-Brings-Joy standard will make sense for Charlie Woods. Because we all know, only through his physical expression, that golf is a kind of battle for the tiger. And from the little we’ve seen from Charlie, it seems to be for him too. The boy has the cold way of his father’s cold. He stands to reason that he also has his opinion.

Arnold Palmer liked to play Golf. But when he played in the national he opens, as the US Open called it, it was for his father. He won him once, in 1960, giving his father (deacon) what he wanted. After this victory, at Cherry Hills, Arnold, it was completely the same. He said it. Tiger clearly loves the competitive elements of the tournament golf. As an amateur, Golf was a way for him to stay close to his father, to bring his father a measure of status and pleasure that nothing else in the world could, and to keep the marriage of his parents, known to be tense, together. This is a lot for a child who has to do by golf, or anything else. But millions of children all over the world, from every walk of life, find themselves doing something along those lines, whether they are aware of this or not.

“Just be able to tell myself that I have won an absolutely amazing event and say I have done under high -pressure situations is great going forward,” Charlie Woods said after winning, for a press release. “I haven’t been able to say I did it and now that I can be a great thing about my mental game that goes ahead.”

This is an indication, just there: to move forward, to move forward, to move forward. When you are Charlie Woods, you do not have the luxury of here and now, the way another child can be.

That was a serious event. Entering it, Charlie was ranked 6066 in Ajga Ranking of young boys players. Of the 72 players in the field, only one had a lower order. (Organization ranks 2,000 main players. Is it really necessary?) The tournament had a number of players forced for Division I. Yes, of course, there is a factory that produces players as there are factories for tennis players, basketball players, among other sports. Charlie Woods is right there with hundreds more. He is not the only rich child. But he is the only son of Tiger Woods on the list.

In response to Charlie’s victory, his father did a smart thing. He did what every other winning parent would do. He said nothing and let his son have the moment.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments in Michael.bamberger@golf.com.