Tiger & son’s 11 straight birdies fall short
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)
— Tiger Woods might not be ready for tourlevel golf. He can still deliver quite a show.
In a remarkable return from a car crash 10 months ago that badly damaged his right leg, Woods and 12-year-old son Charlie set a tournament record with 11 straight birdies and pushed John Daly and his college son all the way to the finish Sunday in the PNC Championship.
Daly and John Daly II, a freshman at Arkansas, shot 57 in the scramble format and won by two shots. It might have been the widest Woods ever smiled after a runner-up finish.
“The fact that I’m able to have this opportunity this year — even a couple weeks ago we didn’t really know whether or not I would be doing this,” Woods said. “But here we are. And we had just best time ever.”
The birdie streak began on the seventh hole when Woods hit a halfwedge into a foot. Charlie holed a 10-footer on the next hole, stooping to pick up the marker before the ball was even in the cup, another moment where the confident son looked a lot like his father.
It was like that over the final two hours, Woods often hitting the key irons and Charlie making the putts. They briefly had the lead after a birdie on the 14th and the margin was thin the rest of the way until the very end.
Daly, playing two groups behind, birdied the 16th hole to regain the lead. He and his son stayed in front when Team Woods chipped too strong on the par-5 closing hole and each of them missed 8-foot birdie putts. They shot 57 with only four pars, two of them on par 5s.
“We thought we’d have to birdie every hole on the back nine, and it turned out to be that way,” Woods said. “But man, what a blast it was. We just had a blast all day.”