Charlie Woods plays golf for the Benjamin School, in South Florida. The team is coached by Toby Harbeck, sixth from far left.
In the lead-up to the Florida High School Athletic Association Class 1A golf state championship last month, Toby Harbeck had a decision to make.
Harbeck, the head boys’ golf coach and an English teacher for nearly 40 years at the Benjamin School, a private institution in Palm Beach Gardens, needed to determine which of his 12 players would take the fifth and final spot on the squad bound for states. Harbeck had a reserve of eager players from which to choose, including a 14-year-old freshman named Charlie Woods.
Charlie, perhaps you’ve heard, is the son of 15-time major winner Tiger Woods and a considerable talent in his own right. You’ve likely seen Charlie competing alongside Tiger in recent years at the PNC Championship, where father and son are back in the mix again this week at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, in Orlando. Charlie has all the tools — power, touch, club twirls, cheeky quips — but to give you an idea of the kind of competition he’s up against at his school, his 74.3 scoring average last season was bettered by four of his teammates and quite a way behind the 70.4 pace of the team leader.
Still, Charlie had something going for him that had nothing to do with his last name: experience and success at the state championship host site, the El Campeon course at Mission Resort and Club, just outside Orlando. In September, Charlie had shot 71-66 at El Campeon in qualifying for another event. A year before that, as a 13-year-old, he had shot 80-68 in the same qualifier on the same course. With three sub-par rounds in four attempts, Charlie already had proven he could handle what is a tough, tight and, for Florida, uncharacteristically hilly layout.
“So I got to thinking about it,” Harbeck, who is 66, told me the other day. “Here’s a kid who is not afraid of this golf course. I mean, for you to break 72 on this golf course is saying something. That’s how hard it is. The fact that he’s got three or four rounds below par, I said, ‘You know what? I got to play him in the state finals.’”
It was a bold move given Charlie hadn’t played in either the district or regional events in the prelude to state, and the decision wasn’t universally lauded. As Harbeck said, it “kind of upset the cart a little bit with some of my other guys. But sometimes I got to go with a gut feeling.”
As the fifth player in a format that counts only the four best of each team’s scores in each round, Charlie had a specific charge: play well but don’t go flag-hunting. “The number five guy’s job is if one of the four in front goes south on me, I got to be able to use his score,” Harbeck said.
As a safety net, Charlie shot an unflashy 78-76 in the 36-hole event, with both of his scores counting toward his team’s total. He finished 26th overall among 98 players, but his individual standing was moot because his team accomplished its mission, storming back from a six-shot deficit late in the second round to win by one. For the fourth time — and the third under Harbeck’s watch — the Benjamin School were state champs.
“I know the numbers weren’t terrific,” Harbeck said of Charlie’s scores. “But Charlie did exactly what I asked him to do. I couldn’t have been happier with the way it all turned out.”
HARBECK WAS REFERRING TO the state tournament but, when you listen to the coach talk, it’s clear the sentiment could also apply to the entirety of Charlie’s rookie season as a high school golfer. Trying to blaze a trail in the same pursuit that made your father a global superstar can’t be easy, but Harbeck will tell you Charlie is doing a commendable job in that quest.
Charlie and his big sister, Sam, have attended the Benjamin School since they were tykes. He began playing junior golf at an early age but didn’t come into the public eye until the 2020 PNC Championship, when, as an 11-year-old, his spirited play and uncanny Tiger-like mannerisms captured the golf world’s imagination. A year later at the PNC, Team Woods ran off a tournament-record 11 straight birdies and finished second. Tiger & Charlie Fever was fully on.
As an eighth-grader, Charlie considered trying out for his school’s varsity team but then reconsidered. “He said he wasn’t ready,” Harbeck said. “I said, ‘That’s fine.’ I don’t push him.” As a freshman, though, Charlie was ready. In the 72-hole tryout, he medaled with three rounds under par. But then he needed to prove himself all over again…and again…and again. That’s the thing about high school golf: many coaches, Harbeck among them, make even their best players earn, through intra-team qualifying, one of the six to eight spots typically available in tournaments. Play lousily and you’re riding the pine. Harbeck said Charlie played in 12 of their team’s 16 events last season.
Charlie didn’t take long to prove he belonged. Early in the season, the team received an invitation to play in a tournament in Naples, about a three-hour drive away. Harbeck could take only five players, so he extended the invitation to his four seniors and let them choose a fifth representative. They picked Charlie. “There were 14 teams and Charlie won the whole damn thing,” Harbeck said. “He shot 65 the first day, and we won as a team also. So that was kind of like, hmm…”
That event also brought into focus Charlie’s growing celebrity, with galleries of up to 50 strong — not something you see often at high school tournaments — tracking his every move. Charlie’s teammates doubled as his bodyguards. “They were like shooing people away,” Harbeck said. “Hey, leave him alone. We’re talking to him right now, or We’re doing something — the boys are very protective of him, because he’s part of our team. He’s not Charlie Woods. He’s part of the Benjamin School team.”
During one of the tournament rounds, Harbeck was chatting with Charlie on the 8th hole, a straight-away par-5 lined by condos down the right side. “I look up,” Harbeck recalled, “and I’m watching all these doors to the condos opening up and all these people come out because they knew he was there.” On the second day, after inclement weather had suspended play, more than a hundred players, coaches, spectators and members took shelter in the clubhouse. Harbeck gathered his team at an out-of-the-way corner table, but Charlie still was sought out for pictures and autographs. Fans flock to Charlie on the course, too. At one event, an armada of 30 golf carts awaited him on the first tee.
At another match, Harbeck said a couple of photographers tried to access the course but because Harbeck didn’t know them, he turned them away. At public-course host sites, paparazzi wrangling is trickier. “You can’t stop anyone from coming, and if Tiger’s there, it’s crazier,” Harbeck said. “Trust me, there are people in trees taking pictures. Microphones in his face.” After the first couple of weeks of the season, Harbeck learned to alert host sites in advance of the interest that Charlie stirs up, which he said led to some courses beefing up their security.
“But the kids handle it really well,” Harbeck said of the commotion. “He’s just one of the guys. He’s Charlie. That’s it.”
