Trumpet calls and drum rolls: Tiger Woods returns to the field today and tomorrow to play alongside the son twelve year old Charlie at the PNC Championship tournament, also known as the Father/Son Challenge, on the course of the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, in Florida. The challengers are 20 PGA Tour professionals, glories of today and yesterday, from Justin Thomas to Bubba Watson to Gary Player, who will team up with a family member. The event is also broadcast in Italy, digitally by Golf TV and on satellite by Eurosport. Golfers from all over the world unite and bond in front of a screen.
What's so interesting about it, non-experts might wonder? First Woods, ten months ago, risked theright leg amputation after a terrible car accident, alone. So the fact that you walk and even play is an event. Besides, Tiger isn't a golf champion, he's golf. The champion will turn 46 on December 30th and has a heavier weight of injuries on his shoulders than his rich palmares, but he is the Achilles of the greens, the only recognized star, the one the public wants to see, the most charismatic. Many of the youngsters who dominate the world rankings today grew up in the myth of him, with his photo on the poster hanging in the bedroom. Even they feel orphaned without his roar and the tour no longer shines. Because Tiger was good, but he was also communicative, he knew how to involve the audience. To keep millions of viewers glued to the TV for 4 or 5 hours every day for four days, you need someone capable of telling his story while playing, exulting, despairing, mimicking emotions.
Today, what we will see on TV is obviously a different, mature man who does not have too many illusions about his future. After an endless series of back surgeries a few years ago he managed, with great effort, to win again, to conquer his 15th major, the Augsburg Masters, his favorite. Then there was talk of a miracle, but this time the sporting prodigy will not be repeated. after theaccident of February 23, finding the form to be competitive against so many young rampants is unthinkable.
“I had to climb Everest again – admits Tiger – I had to do it, and I did, but this time, I don't think I will have the resources to get very high. I'm happy like this, I can still play golf, I can still take part in a tournament, but getting up there again, to the top, isn't a realistic hypothesis”.
So? Meanwhile, hope is the last to die. And then there's Charlie, Tiger's second son from his Swedish ex-wife (Elin Nordegrene) and to which he seems ready to pass the baton. Already last year, in the same race, the little one stood out for his talent. Now it will be nice to see how this tandem works, it will be fascinating to find out if Tiger will be able to instill in Charlie the same trust that his father was able to transmit in him when he was just little Eldrik.
The champion therefore reappears above all in the guise of Pope. There is a video on the official profiles of the Pga Tour where Tiger is moved by watching Charlie try to emulate him in all respects. Him same movements, identical celebrations and a similar style of play. Well, sport is also made up of good stories. After so much trouble, sex scandals, accidents, scalpels who knows if this is not the beginning of another chapter, of a human rebirth even more important than the sporting one
