Toby Harbeck has been the mentor guiding Charlie Woods throughout. It’s under him that junior Woods won his first AJGA event in May 2025. Shooting a 15-under par, he was composed: at times frustrated, but otherwise nonchalant. Just like his dad. Harbeck, who often stays behind the camera, couldn’t be prouder. His hard work paid off, and he has a few to thank. Including Jack Nicklaus.

“There are no greater supporters of this team than Jack and Barbara Nicklaus,” Harbeck told The Daily Mail on 25th December. “My first year, we didn’t have a bus, so I used to take my car and drive over to Jack and Barbara’s.”

At the Nicklaus’s house, Barbara Nicklaus would give him the keys to her station wagon. Harbeck would then settle the boys in it. All this ordeal, just to reach matches. But this chapter happened quite later in Harbeck’s life. You see, the Nicklaus family also played their part in making him a golf coach in the first place.

Harbeck started his career as a ninth-grade English teacher at the Benjamin School. In 1983, as he taught his class, a young Gary Nicklaus, Jack’s second son, gave him a reality check:

“You need to be the golf coach.”

For Harbeck, this was surprising advice. For he had no idea about golf. But Nicklaus Jr. held him and pushed him to move ahead. Years later, Harbeck cannot be more relieved with his decision. It’s been 40 years now since Harbeck has been part of the school. From a teacher to an athletic trainer, and now the boys’ golf coach. His office holds all the memories, from his students signing flags to pictures he has taken with them. A thank you should be sent to the Nicklaus family. Hence, Harbeck expressed his gratitude towards them. He wouldn’t be in this job without the clan.

It is under his pristine eyes that Charlie Woods is shaping his path. He also previously taught Charlie grammar and English in seventh grade. Charlie’s elder sister, Sam, too, has been one of his students, one of his hardest working. Charlie, for his part, is no less.

“Very smart… Charlie could probably go to any school in the country,” Harbeck shared with The Daily Mail.

Like his father, Charlie is a little reserved and yet focused. Harbeck remembers one moment clearly. As Charlie lined up for an approach shot, he wanted him to aim for 10 feet. Charlie, instead, looked at him and said, it’s easily going to be three. The ball then finished exactly where he said it would. That strategic precision is something he clearly gets from Tiger.

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Tiger Woods’s legacy is shaping the present

Almost three decades earlier, Jack Nicklaus saw a 20-year old Tiger Woods practicing in the 1996 Masters. At that moment, he knew that the future of golf had been written. “The most fundamentally sound golfer,” Woods, would eventually turn the prophecy true. The veteran’s contention brought out the best in him.

The two are arguably the greatest in their game, and yet were never quite close to each other. Tiger Woods, for his part, would at times seek Nicklaus’s advice and played under him when Nicklaus captained the Presidents Cup. Eventually, in the 2000s at Valhalla, Nicklaus played his last PGA Championship. Watching Woods dominate, he knew his time had come to pass the baton.

“I knew that I was getting to where I couldn’t compete…it was brought to me very abruptly when I played with Tiger.”

Interestingly, as distant as the two could be, Tiger Woods still carries Nicklaus’s philosophy within him. Most specifically in his parenting style. Just like Jack Nicklaus never forced Gary Nicklaus to opt for golf, Woods, too, has never insisted Charlie pursue golf, unless he wants to himself.

“Charlie is Charlie,” he said back in 2024. “Yes, he’s my son. He’s going to have the last name…But I just want him to be himself and just be your own person.”

But since Charlie has chosen the path, Woods has firmly supported him, even in ways that are unconventional. He knows he might catch the spotlight if he steps with Charlie during his games. Hence, he carries his distant persona there as well, and follows the same rules as any other parent.

In one particular instance, Harbeck asked Woods to step in for a picture with just the boys. But the Big Cat refused unless all other parents were included. Two years later, when they again won a championship, the tradition was repeated. And this time, every player stood along with their parents.

Years later, as Charlie Woods would step into the spotlight, it is Nicklaus’s influence that’s quietly guiding him, through Tony Harbeck.