Charlie Woods, son of Tiger, draws crowds but misses cut at US Junior Amateur
Tiger Woods watched his son Charlie shoot a 10-over-par 80 round on Tuesday and miss the cut at 22-over-par after two rounds of the U.S. Junior Amateur.
The 15-year-old Woods, who last month won a spot in the 264-player field, finished near the bottom of the pack. The top 64 players advance to the match play, which begins Wednesday.
Woods fared better on the Oakland Hills South Course, which Ben Hogan dubbed “The Monster,” than he did on Monday, when he posted an opening round of 12-over 82 on the North Course.
Woods started well on Tuesday, rising to the challenge of teeing off in front of a crowd of about 500. But his game is clearly still developing. Woods was one over after four holes when a storm halted play for more than an hour. When play resumed, he closed the first nine holes by playing five holes in eight overs, including a triple bogey on the par-four 18th, where he landed two pitches on an elevated green but then rolled back down the hill. He finally got his fifth shot to stay on the green.
The U.S. Junior Amateur usually draws a few hundred fans at the end of the six-day tournament, but Charlie and his famous father drew a relatively large crowd. Tiger was surrounded by more people, including police officers, protecting him than most other groups on the course. Hundreds of people followed Charlie down the fairway and surrounded the 10th green, his first hole of the day.
Charlie, who will soon be starting his sophomore year of high school in Florida, qualified for the tournament with many of the world’s best juniors by scoring 71 (-1) to win his qualifying match.
Tiger, who was 14 when he qualified for his first U.S. Junior, became the only player to win the tournament three times in a row in the early 1990s. He entered this week’s tournament with his son after matching his highest 36-hole score as a professional at the Open, making it his third straight major cut.