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PNC Championship: Tiger Woods not worried about foot injury, playing with Charlie is worth the risk

ryan young
Staff writer
·5 min read
38

Tiger Woods didn’t think twice about playing in the PNC Championship this week despite his foot injury.

Getting to play with his son, Charlie, is easily worth the risk of making his foot worse — something he thinks is a real possibility over the next two days at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando.

“I don't really care about that,” Tiger said Friday. “I think being there with and alongside my son is far more important, and get to have a chance to have this experience with him is far better than my foot being a little creaky."

Team Woods made their debut at the PNC Championship in 2020, where they finished in seventh at the modified two-day event. They took second last year, finishing just two shots behind John Daly and his son.

Charlie, now 13, will likely carry the team once again — both out of convenience for Tiger, who is still struggling to walk normally, and because he can.

Charlie is also dealing with a minor ankle injury, Tiger said, and he hasn’t been practicing as much as he maybe could have. He’s been studying for midterm exams, Tiger said, which “are more important than golf.”

But still, Tiger has seen plenty of improvement in Charlie’s game recently.

“You have to understand in tournament golf you've got to make a switch on the fly and trust it. And that's where I've seen the biggest growth when I've caddied for him in events or I've watched him play,” Tiger said of his son’s game. “I can see him rehearsing shots, he's trying to get out of that pattern, he feels this. And I can just see it. And then we talk it and we discuss it, and then we move on and drop it and go do something else.”

Tiger missed the Hero World Challenge earlier this month due to plantar fasciitis in his right foot, and he was seen limping a bit on Friday. He’ll be riding in a cart this week, which should help quite a bit. Tiger will keep doing therapy on his foot, too, something he said he’s been doing constantly.

But regardless of any injury setbacks that come out of this week or where they finish on the leaderboard, Tiger is just thrilled to be spending time with his son.

“Just being able to be with my son in any time, for us to have that father-son bonding moments, whether it’s at home or it’s a couple years ago in our first competitive environment,” Tiger said. “Those are memories and things that we still talk about, shots he hit, shots that I hit — but he only refers to the bad ones that I hit … those are experiences that I want to be a part of in his life.”

Tiger Woods and Charlie Woods
Tiger and Charlie Woods will compete again this week at the PNC Championship. (David Cannon/Getty Images)

Padraig Harrington thinks Tiger has a chance at another major

Tiger has already made it clear he’s not going to return to a normal Tour schedule. Those days are over.

That, though, doesn’t mean he can’t win another major.

If he can simply get to the back nine on Sunday at a major, former PGA player Padraig Harrington said this week, Tiger can absolutely grab a 16th title.

“You'd never run Tiger off, but I actually think he might be even better than that — in a better place than I had thought,” Harrington said at the PNC Championship.

Tiger hasn’t played much since his car crash in Southern California in 2020, competing in just a few majors last season. He likely wouldn’t have played in The Match last week or even this week with Charlie if he wasn’t allowed to use a cart.

Tiger probably won’t even try to compete until the Genesis Invitational in February, an event his foundation hosts in Los Angeles on Tour each season. It may even take until April for him to hit the course again when Augusta National comes around.

However, if anyone can pull off another win, Harrington said, it’s Tiger.

“There's two things that make a golfer: How talented they are and how resilient they are. And generally you get — usually you get very talented, not very resilient; or you get very resilient and not very talented. That's normally the way it is,” Harrington said. “Tiger, through his whole career, [has had] both of those, which is very unusual. To have the talent — like Tiger never gave up on a shot in his life. He has that resilience, that toughness … Tiger, if you can get him to the last nine holes of a tournament, I don't think you're going to have a problem.

“And he looked good physically. As I said, he looked better at that match. So, you know, I'm not saying he ‘could be.’ I actually believe he will be a danger. I think he'll win another major. The way I looked at him, I genuinely think he will be in contention. And as I said, I'm sure he wishes every tournament he could play, if it's like a major, he's going to have a chance.”