Tiger Woods’ son Charlie makes astonishing hole-in-one at PNC Championship

Tiger Woods congratulates his son, Charlie, after a hole-in-one at the PNC Championship. Photo / AFP

As if the Woods family’s highlights reels did not already contain enough special content, 15-year-old Charlie added another jaw-dropping moment on Sunday when making a hole-in-one alongside father Tiger in the final round of the PGA Tour’s parent-and-child tournament.

With the pair in contention to win the first prize in the PNC Championship at the Ritz-Carlton Club in Orlando, Woods jnr overshadowed his father in the headline stakes on the 176-yard fourth, courtesy of a sweetly struck seven iron that took two bounces before spinning and checking and dropping into the cup.

With the Florida crowd in euphoria, Charlie was initially unaware of his achievement. “Is it in?,” the fluffy haired teenager asked before the confirmation sent him running into Tiger’s embrace.

The beaming dad proceeded to playfully push Charlie to take the plaudits from playing partners Bernhard Langer and his son, Jason, who met him with high-fives. When they asked how many aces he had, Charlie replied with a huge smile: “This is my first one! What a way to do it. That’s awesome.”

Charlie faced a big bar tab – a hole-in-one is traditionally heralded with the golfer having to buy everyone in the clubhouse a drink – although at least he could share it with the heir of another multiple major champion. Just an hour later, Paddy Harrington, the first-born of Irish legend Padraig, made his own hole-in-one on the eighth.

If the apple does not fall far from the tree, then clearly the Titleist Pro VI ends up even closer.

Woods snr has enjoyed three aces on the Tour, but the most recent was 26 years ago. The 48-year-old’s joy was unconfined and with good reason. The 15-time major winner underwent a back operation three months ago – the sixth in the past 10 years – and scheduled that surgery to be sure he recovered in time to play with his son for the fifth straight year.

Tiger’s daughter, Sam, was caddying for her father for the second straight year, while their mother, Elin, was among those in the gallery. Woods had not appeared competitively since the Open at Royal Troon in July and clearly did not regard this event simply as a hit-and-giggle.

“We’re trying to pull off each and every shot for each other, and to ham-and-egg,” Woods said after their first round in the Texas Scramble format. “And I think we did that great pretty much the entire day. We picked each other up, which was great. And Charlie made pretty much most of the putts today.”

Charlie is hardly one of the top juniors of his age, but is no doubt an up-and-comer having qualified for his first US Junior Amateur this year. He also tried to go through the hell that is US Open qualifying before falling short. He is unashamedly on the learning curve.

“It’s about focusing on my playing,” Charlie said. “I was so focused on winning and how I played that it kind of crept into how am I going to win instead of how I’m going to play the shot. Live and learn.”

The PNC Championship is for players who have won a major or the Players Championship and they can choose a family member. Annika Sorenstam played with her son, while Nelly Korda teed it up with father Petr, the former tennis world No 2 and Australian Open winner.