You could get a long look at Tiger Woods this week but you’d have to venture, basically, to the middle of nowhere.
Tiger’s the official bag-man (aka caddie) for son Charlie at the Notah Begay III Boys Junior National Championship. The event is being played at the Koasati Pines at Coushatta.
Where’s Koasati Pines at Coushatta?
Well, first, it is good to know that Choushatta is the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana. The tribal reservation is outside Kinder in southwest Louisiana — it’s west of Lafayette, site of a Korn Ferry Tour event. Kinder has a whopping population of a tad more than 2,400 — about one-tenth of a decent Tiger Woods gallery.
The Korn Ferry Tour event in Lafayette is hosted by the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana. Like the Chitimachas, the Coushatta Tribe discovered the wonderful world of Native American-owned gaming casinos and this golf course, Koasati Pines is owned by the tribe.
Now stay with us.
It’s a perfect spot as Begay, longtime friend of Tiger’s and his former teammate at Stanford, is a Native American.
That ties everything together.
So Tiger and son Charlie hopped on Air Eldrick earlier this week and made their way into the middle of nowhere for the junior tournament.
Charlie is competing in the boys 12-13 age group. Charlie shot 72 the first round on Monday, one-over, but came back on Tuesday with a two-under par 69. Charlie’s round featured four birdies, an eagle, a double-bogey and two bogeys. He was even-par after 36-hole and solo 15th with 18 to play.
Tournament leader was Cole Kim from La Crescenta, Ca. Kim fired an eye-opening 64 for the first round, seven-under. He came back on day two with a five-under par 66 and was blowing the field away. He was 12-under through 36 holes and no doubt that got Tiger’s attention while he was looking at the tournament scoreboard late Tuesday.
Now imagine for a moment if your son was paired with Charlie Woods and lo-and-behold, there’s Eldrick, his own-self, cleaning the clubs, wearing the caddie bib and throwing Charlie’s sticks onto a nearby golf cart. Did you expect Tiger to walk and tote Charlie’s bag?
When day two was done, Tiger got some, well, expected news. And Rory McIlroy let the Tiger out of the bag, so to speak.
Rory, in a media interview, revealed that Tiger won the PGA Tour’s PIP for the second straight year. “Hey, I gave him a pretty good run,” McIlroysaid, noting that he finished second to Woods on that PIP list.
Tiger played just nine rounds of golf in 2022 but proved he’s still “The Needle” when it comes to driving the needle. The PIP was expanded to $100 million this year with the top 20 getting the benefits (money).
In the meantime, there was Tiger, driving the needle once again and he’s not even playing.
Yes, Tiger speaks, swings and in this case, caddies, and the social media hits go off the charts.
But huge money aside, for Tiger and Charlie, it’s on to the third and final round of Notah’s tournament.
Notah Begay Tournament Scores:
Tiger Woods Update: To the surprise of absolutely no one, Tiger announced on Wednesday that he will be in the field for his Hero World Challenge, Dec. 1-4 at Albany in The Bahamas.
