Tiger Woods watches his son Charlie’s shot from the third fairway during the final round of the PNC Championship on Sunday in Orlando, Fla. Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press
ORLANDO, Fla. — Justin Thomas and Tiger Woods traded text messages on the eve of the final round at the PNC Championship, their teams tied for the lead and in contention. Neither mentioned winning.
This was about Woods getting to play alongside 11-year-old son Charlie, watching him twirl the club after a good drive and yes, even deliver a fist pump in his red shirt on Sunday. For Thomas, it was about competing with his father Mike, a longtime club professional in Kentucky and the only coach he’s ever had.
Team Thomas birdied the opening seven holes and the father delivered a 5-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole that gave them a 15-under 57 in the scramble format and a one-shot victory over Vijay Singh and son Qass.
They won the Willie Park Trophy. It only felt like the other 19 teams won a participation trophy.
“Memories we’ll have for our entire lives,” Woods said after he and Charlie posted another 62 to finish seventh. “He’s not going to appreciate this at 11 years old. I didn’t when I was with my dad. As the years go by, you start appreciating it more.”
Woods and his son dressed in his traditional Sunday red with black trousers. Charlie’s mother, Elin Nordegren, walked the final round at The Ritz-Carlton Club at Grande Lakes, her first time at a golf tournament since the 2009 Presidents Cup at Harding Park.
The Woodses played the final six holes in 6-under par, too late by then to do anything about Thomas and his father. Thomas, a former world No. 1 and PGA champion, has grown close to the Woods clan and talked in the days leading up to this event about how badly Charlie wants to beat him.
Mike Thomas said young Woods took $1 off him on the putting green Saturday afternoon and said with a laugh, “I’ll show him what I got here.” Mike Thomas specializes in working with juniors and spends time with Charlie when he’s in Florida.
Thomas, who has multiple PGA Tour titles in each of his last four years, wasn’t about to compare this with with his PGA Championship, World Golf Championships or any other of his 13 tour victories. Even so, he called the PNC Championship “100 percent the most enjoyable.”
When his father holed the birdie putt, he said he knew there were 10 teams still on the course and it still felt as though the tournament was over.
“A part of you didn’t care who won,” he said. “We were here as father and son to enjoy a special moment.”
That’s what Alastair Johnston, the vice chairman at IMG, had in mind when he created this tournament 25 years ago. It started as the Father-Son Challenge. It since has changed into major champions and Players Championship winners competing with a family member – son, daughter, father-in-law, grandson.
The idea was that golf fans would be curious to see the children of great players. Throw in the 11-year-old son of golf’s biggest star, and interest surged to new levels. Charlie Woods delivered a great show, unfazed by the 250 spectators (mostly sponsor guests) or the national TV spotlight.
LPGA: Jin Young Ko missed most of the LPGA Tour season and still won the yearlong money title.
That’s what a $1.1 million check does.
Ko, the No. 1 player in the world, put an emphatic capper on her truncated year Sunday by shooting a final-round 6-under 66 and winning the CME Group Tour Championship by five strokes over Hannah Green and Sei Young Kim, in Naples, Florida.
With a birdie on the final hole, the LPGA’s final putt of the season, Ko finished at 18 under for her seventh career LPGA win. Green’s final-round 67 — on her 24th birthday — helped push her into the second-place tie.
Kim, who took a one-shot lead into the final round, shot 72 and that was good enough for her to clinch Rolex Player of the Year honors.
Ko started the final round one shot back of Kim and opened with a birdie. The key stretch was Ko’s run of three straight birdies on the 12th through the 14th — her longest such run of the week. She left a chance for a fourth in a row just left of the cup on 15, then all but wrapped up the win with another birdie on the 16th.
The win wrapped up a wire-to-wire year in the No. 1 spot for Ko, who has held the ranking since July 29, 2019. She moved to $5,600,824 in career earnings, making her the 71st player in LPGA history to cross the $5 million mark.
Ko played only four LPGA events in 2020 — she competed six times on the Korean LPGA while riding out the coronavirus pandemic at home — but Sunday’s win and a check for $487,286 for finishing second in last week’s U.S. Women’s Open helped push her season earnings to $1,667,925. That would have been good for fifth-best on tour last season, when each of the 21 leading money-winners all appeared in at least 20 events.
Kim’s realistic hopes of winning ended when she left a 25-foot par putt short on the par-4 15th to fall four off Ko’s lead. But the player-of-the-year award was still in her control at that point, and she finished that off.
Mina Harigae (68) finished at 12 under, the fourth-place finish matching the best of her LPGA career.
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