Plenty of golf fans will be desperately reminding themselves to keep their feet on the ground heading into 2025 after watching Tiger Woods’ performance at the PNC Championship this past week.
There are plenty of reasons to not read too much into Tiger Woods‘ display at the PNC Championship, with the tournament taking place over two rounds. Meanwhile, it involved a scramble format. And of course, the current PGA Tour players in the field are all in the twilight of their careers at the highest level.
And yet, it was nothing short of special watching Woods battling for the title down the stretch. Ultimately, the 15-time major champion and his son Charlie were beaten in a play-off by Bernhard Langer and his son Jason. Team Langer have now won the event on six occasions.
The highlight of the final day came when Charlie Woods made his first ever hole in one on the fourth hole. His father was slightly late to the party having needed to deal with a call of nature, but it was clear just what the moment meant to the 48-year-old.
What was noticed about how Tiger Woods behaved at the PNC Championship
Meanwhile, it was notable how gracious Woods was when Bernhard Langer holed the eagle putt in the play-off to secure the victory. And speaking on the Golf Channel Podcast, Rex Hoggard suggested that he is not sure that he has ever seen Woods conduct himself in that way, particularly when he has not gone on to win.
“I was trying to wrap my mind around the idea that over the course of Tiger Woods’ entire career, have I ever seen him that happy on the golf course? And I couldn’t come up with anything that was close. Clearly, he enjoyed the 15 major championships, everything he’s accomplished in his career, but I’ve never seen just the unbridled happiness that he had yesterday when he was walking with Charlie Woods. And I think it was because it combined his two favourite things in the world, that’s competing at golf at whatever the highest level is for him at the moment – and right now, that is the highest level, 36 holes of scramble golf against old golfers is as high as he can reach at the particular moment – and spending time with his family,” he said.
“I’m standing on the fourth tee box about to beeline it back to the media centre. No-one saw this, Tiger Woods was actually in the porta-john, he’s going to the bathroom and Bernhard Langer’s child tees off first. And it’s not until Tiger Woods kind of limps up the tee box, and I know he limped up the tee box because I said something snarky to him as he was walking up, and he said something mean to me back. We were just being playful in the moment, and he turns right as Charlie was hitting that tee shot on the par three and the look of confusion and just pure joy that erupted when everything happened so quickly, you couldn’t see the ball go in the hole from the tee box, you had to kind of judge by the fan reaction, and in that moment, you understood this is the highlight, not just of his year, this is probably the highlight of his life when it comes to Tiger Woods that your son gets his very first hole in one in this setting, you’re playing alongside of him, the world is watching, and then it just grew from there.
“They didn’t win, and that’s the part that gets me because I don’t know how many times you and I have written the game story where Tiger Woods was so happy with a loss. I can say from my experience, never happened before. He’s never been happy after a loss. I don’t care how close he was, I don’t care the circumstances, there was never joy, there was never smiles, there was never happiness.”
How Tiger Woods has changed on the golf course over the years
Woods’ legacy amongst the vast majority of golf fans is not going to be decided by how he performed in the PNC Championship. There are more important things than the final result at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club. However, there is no chance that Woods would have agreed with that view coming down the stretch on Sunday.
But Langer was full of praise for Woods after their victory, noting how kind he had been throughout the day.
It is a far cry from when Woods was at the peak of his powers. Woods would not talk to his rivals on Saturday and Sunday, with Geoff Ogilvy previously claiming that he would not even make eye contact with his playing partners when he was in contention.
Only Woods himself will know how he feels about the game at this stage of his career, but it really does appear that he appreciates the time he spends on the golf course at this time of his life so much more.
The fact that some of that time is now spent watching his son steal the show is probably the icing on the cake.
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