The matter of which tees Charlie Woods will play at this weekend’s PNC Championship became an unexpected subject of debate after conflicting reports. As it turns out, the discussion may have been much ado about nothing.
Thursday afternoon, Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis — who had originally reported that the 13-year-old Woods would move the second-to-back tee box — is reporting that the committee has “reconsidered” the tees Charlie Woods will play at this week’s PNC. While the 6,452-yard course he’ll play is still significantly longer than last year, it’s shorter than the 6,754-yard version he was reportedly considering playing this week.
As it turns out, the original report wasn’t quite right. While Charlie was on a list as playing from the same tees as John Daly, Vijay Singh and Nelly Korda, that list wasn’t considered final.
“The thing is, there’s no change,” PGA Tour chief referee Terry told GOLF.com Thursday. “We had heard that Tiger might wish for Charlie to play a longer golf course. But I had scheduled Charlie to play the tee box for his age with the 13-year-olds. So there’s been no change — he will play from the 13-year-old tees.”
Terry added that while competitors could request to play from a longer set of tees, they wouldn’t punish a talented 13-year-old just for being good for his age. You can read his full remarks here.
For context: the PNC is a 20-team tournament in which major champions play alongside family members in a two-day scramble. A wide variety of ages and abilities means they need different players teeing off from different places. And while officials haven’t released complete details about tee boxes for this year’s tournament, we can glean some information from last year’s setup, which consisted of four categories. Here’s how that looked:
COURSE 1 (7,126 yards): Ages 16-54
COURSE 2 (6,576 yards): Ages 14-15, ages 55-73, plus LPGA pros
COURSE 3 (6,036 yards): Ages 11-13
COURSE 4 (5,499 yards): Ages 73 and over
That means that a year ago Charlie Woods and Karl Stenson (son of Henrik) — the event’s two youngest competitors — teed it up from just more than 6,000 yards. In Charlie’s case, that meant the ability to blast it well up the fairway, which proved beneficial to his injured father.
Now Charlie will play a significantly longer course than last year, stretching more than 400 yards longer to 6,452 yards. But it will still be shorter than the course played by his older (and more professional) competition.
Distance shouldn’t be an issue. Tiger has now admitted that his son has driven it past him.
