Being the son of the golf great Tiger Woods has its cons and pros. On one hand, Charlie Woods gets to learn from the best of the best, and on the other, he has to deal with constant scrutiny and carry the weight of expectations that have been knocking at his door since he chose golf as his career. Charlie has not yet achieved the remarkable feats in his amateur career that his father accomplished when he was 15.
And with the emergence of rising talent in the golf world, there is heightened pressure on Woods to be successful and not get buried under expectations or overshadowed by his rival. In that bid, Charlie Woods has to come out successful for the Pinehurst chase.
On Thursday, Charlie Woods will be playing at the 18-hole U.S. Open qualifier at The Legacy Golf & Tennis Club in Florida. The 15-year-old will be making a run to qualify for the 76th U.S. Open and get his name out in the golf world when there is huge pressure on him and when he has failed to prove his game before. In late March, Woods was given a sponsor exemption to play at the Will Lowry Junior Championship sanctioned by the AJGA. marking his AJGA debut.
The Florida native was expected to finish in the top position. However, the 15-year-old started round one with a 6 over 78 with three birdies, two double bogeys, and five single ones. Eventually, he shot the last two rounds of 81 and 78 to finish in a tie for 32 at 21 over 237. Woods was more than 20 strokes behind the winner, Patmon Malcom. And this year, it was not the only disappointment for Tiger Woods’s son. Before his AJGA debut, the junior golfer participated in a qualifier for the Cognizant Classic.
The news attracted many fans on the course and made the situation a bit risky. Amidst the chaos, Woods shot a round of 16 over 86 and lost the chance to play at Palm Beach with other PGA Tour pros. Woods still has a long way to go to catch up to amateurs like Miles Russell, the 15-year-old who became the youngest player to make the cut for a PGA Tour-sanctioned event and to win the AJGA Rolex Boys POY, breaking Tiger Woods’s 32-year-old record.
Another amateur golfer giving Woods tough competition is Gordon Sargent, who is known for his driving speed of 185–190 mph and has been praised by Max Homa as a “phenomenal golfer.” While Woods’s resume does boast such similar accolades, the question remains: will he be able to equal his father’s feat achievements at the age of 15?
By the age of 15, Tiger Woods had already made a name for himself as a talented golfer. By then, Woods had won five junior titles and became the then-youngest amateur to win his first U.S. Junior Amateur. Comparatively, Charlie Woods has yet to win any junior title, and winning the U.S. Junior Amateur is still months away.
But Woods will have to prepare far harder if he wants to match his father’s record of three U.S. Junior Amateur victories. Coming to Woods at 15, in 1991, the 15-time major winner was also named the Titleist Golfweek National Amateur Player of the Year, Golf Digest POY, and voted as the Southern California Amateur POY.
With Charlie Woods still without a win in the 2024 season, it remains difficult that he will grab as many accolades as his father. However, his qualifying round for the 2024 U.S. Open may push Woods to not get overshadowed by fellow amateurs or his father’s undying legacy.
