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Charlie Woods on the PNC Championship on Friday.
getty pictures
The PNC Championship is meant to be a chill affair that places a feel-good bow on {the golfing} 12 months.
And it’s.
However since Tiger and Charlie Woods have grow to be a staple at Ritz-Carlton Golf Membership over the previous 4 years, driving untold extra buzz and eyeballs to the two-day parent-child occasion, you possibly can’t assist however sense that the proceedings have taken on extra significance. Tiger has jokingly referred to as the PNC his “fifth main.” Lee Trevino says he seems ahead to this week greater than the Masters. When Vijay Singh and his son Qass received final 12 months, Qass mentioned, “That is what we needed ceaselessly.”
“Sixteen years,” Vijay mentioned.
So, yeah, the PNC means one thing to its individuals.
Which suggests its PGA Tour Champions organizers attempt to make the competitors — i.e., the tee assignments — as equitable as attainable.
That’s no small job when you’ve got a discipline that features not solely professionals competing towards amateurs and males towards ladies but in addition octogenarians squaring off with entrants who aren’t even previous to shave. This week, Trevino is again within the discipline. At 84, he’s 72 years older than the youngest participant on the tee sheet, Annika Sorenstam’s son, Will McGee. Between them are the likes of Matt Kuchar’s son Cameron (he’s 15); John Daly II (20), who performs faculty golf at Arkansas; LPGA star Nelly Korda (25); Qass Singh (33), who works within the insurance coverage enterprise; and on it goes to gamers of various skills of their 40s, 50s, 60s and, sure…one in his 80s.
The Tour assigns gamers to one in all 4 tee distances contingent upon the gamers’ age and standing; right here’s how this 12 months’s assignments have been doled out:
7,106 yards (gold): Professionals 52 and beneath; members of the family 16-52
6,578 yards (white): Professionals and members of the family 52-63; LPGA members and members of the family 14-15
6,036 yards (crimson): Professionals 64-72; members of the family 12-13
5,499 yards (blue): Professionals and members of the family 73 and over; juniors 11 and beneath
It’s not an ideal system — what system could possibly be for such a various discipline? — however the committee does reserve the precise to make changes as deemed mandatory, although these tweaks are uncommon. As Joe Terry, the Tour’s chief referee, advised PGATour.com final 12 months, “Age is age, and it’s at all times fixed, and if we stick by our match laws, we’ll be nice.”
Nonetheless, it’s laborious to not scan the tee sheet and really feel like some gamers don’t have both a definite tee-aided benefit or drawback. For instance, from the playing-from-the-tips group, it’s important to really feel for Justin Leonard, who’s driving distance common on the Champions tour is 272.8 yards. That’s nothing to smell at, however whenever you evaluate him to the mashers in his group, similar to Justin Thomas (308.5 yards) and Stewart Cink (305.5 yards), Leonard is beginning in a 35-yard gap. Even a couple of gamers within the 6,500-yard group (white tees), together with John Daly II, Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen, are significantly longer than Leonard and, for that matter, David Duval, who is also taking part in from the way-backs.
What’s Charlie Woods’ golf recreation like? We requested his highschool coach
Nelly Korda is taking part in from the whites. Ought to she be? Possibly, perhaps not. A 6,500-yard setup is on the longer facet on the LPGA however definitely not unprecedented — the official yardage for the U.S. Girls’s Open at Pebble Seashore this 12 months was 6,505 yards — however Korda’s 268.9-yard common driving distance nonetheless is 30 yards behind the longest hitters in her PNC bracket. In the meantime, Bernhard Langer, who’s driving common (269.4) is longer than Korda’s, is taking part in from the crimson tees, that are greater than 500 yards shorter than from the place Korda is taking part in.
Charlie Woods, Tiger’s son, is an attention-grabbing case research, as a result of in 4 PNC begins he has performed the occasion from three completely different tee lengths. As an 11-year-old in 2020, he performed from the entrance tees; at 12 and 13, he moved again to the roughly 6,000-yard tees; and this 12 months, as a 14-year-old highschool freshman, he’s been bumped again once more, to six,578 yards.
A 12 months in the past some observers steered Charlie, who was then hitting drives 270 or 280 yards, ought to play longer tees, to which Terry advised PGATour.com: “I’m not going to arbitrate that. Age is age. If I moved him [back] as a result of he’s good, then why don’t I transfer some others as a result of they’re not good?”
Now that Charlie has been moved again — some 500 yards — is he better off or drawback?
Charlie’s highschool coach, Toby Harbeck, advised me Charlie’s drives together with his “regular” swing velocity are within the 275- to 280-yard vary, however together with his “laborious” swing, he can simply crank one on the market 300-plus yards.
Charlie is also accustomed to for much longer setups than the one he’s taking part in this week. Harbeck mentioned Charlie’s crew, which received a state title in Florida earlier this 12 months, sometimes performs tees within the 6,800-yard vary so he expects Charlie’s drives on the PNC will proceed to be a weapon for Group Woods. “He ought to do very nicely from that distance, relying on the climate,” Harbeck mentioned.
Justin Thomas, who has performed a lot golf with Charlie, agreed with the coach’s evaluation.
“I believe taking part in on the highschool crew has been very helpful for him,” Thomas mentioned Friday. “I’m simply glad he retains transferring again tee markers.”
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