Charlie Woods faces more scrutiny than any other junior golfer today. That is not just opinion, but the assessment of a PGA Tour rookie who spoke on Fore Play Episode 837, just a day after making the first hole-in-one in TGL history. He has seen firsthand the difference between pressure and attention when it comes to Charlie.

“Knowing Charlie a little bit and having the opportunity to interact with him a few times, I think he’s really well adjusted. He loves competing,” Neal Shipley spoke on the podcast.

Then came the other side of it. “I wouldn’t want to trade shoes with him. He’s got it tough for a 17 or 18-year-old kid. It’s a lot of attention.”

Charlie is 16 still, and you know what that attention looks like, because Shipley named it precisely. Tiger Woods chose Stanford in 1993, won the NCAA individual title in 1996, and turned professional weeks later. Charlie chose Florida State, the first Woods to break from a path the golf world had spent years treating as a foregone conclusion.

Since age 13, the conversation around Charlie Woods has run on one track: when does he win a major? Not which junior title is next. Not which college program fits his development. Majors. Shipley, who earned his PGA Tour card after starting at James Madison before transferring to Ohio State, understood what that track costs a player still building a game.

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“Talk about it since you were 13 years old about how he’s going to win majors,” he said on the podcast.

Shipley followed that with the most grounded thing said about Charlie’s situation in any public forum this week: “Just because your last name is Woods does not mean you’re going to put the ball in the hole better than other people on the golf course.”

He named players from his own collegiate class, juniors with the rankings, the tournament wins, and the full attention of recruiting programs, who are not playing professional golf now. The distance between a decorated junior and a tour card is narrow for everyone.

Charlie committed to Florida State on February 10, 2026, ranked No. 21 in the AJGA, a ranking that sat outside the top 600 twelve months earlier. He won the 2025 Team TaylorMade Invitational for his first AJGA title, finished T9 at the Junior PGA Championship, and closed out The Benjamin School’s second FHSAA Class 1A state title with a final-round 68, the low round of the tournament.

Mike Russell arrives at FSU as the No. 1-ranked junior in the country, a two-time AJGA Rolex Junior Player of the Year, a two-time Junior PLAYERS champion, and the youngest player in history to make a Korn Ferry Tour cut. While Charlie sits at No. 21, with one AJGA title, a T9 at the Junior PGA Championship, and a resume that has moved from outside the top 600 to the First Team All-American list inside twelve months. The gap between them in current rankings is real, but the trajectory of closing that gap is the more relevant data point heading into Tallahassee in 2027.

Shipley’s read on the decision: “Great facility. Great coaches. Great decision for him.”

What that facility and those coaches have actually produced is the more relevant question heading into 2027.

Florida state golf’s pro pipeline makes Charlie Woods’ commitment more than symbolic

Brooks Koepka came through this program. Five majors, back-to-back U.S. Opens in 2017 and 2018, back-to-back PGA Championships in 2018 and 2019, and an FSU Athletics Hall of Fame induction in 2022. Daniel Berger played for the Seminoles. Luke Clanton graduated recently and turned professional after leading FSU to the 2024 NCAA Championship final. Coach Trey Jones is in his 23rd season, inducted into the Golf Coaches Association of America Hall of Fame in December 2024, with four top-five NCAA finishes and an ACC title in 2023 on the program’s record. The Seminole Legacy Golf Course carries an $8 million renovation.

Jones stood in the gallery for Charlie’s final-round 68 at the state championship last November, watching every shot. NCAA rules prevent him from publicly discussing the commitment until signing day in November 2026. His presence at that tournament did not require words.

Jones has built a program in which coaches have developed elite players and managed large personalities over two decades. The Class of 2027 — Russell and Woods together — now carries more public attention than any incoming college golf pairing in recent memory.

Shipley framed what Charlie faces without softening it: “It’s hard.” A last name does not move the ball closer to the hole.

The golf course has always been indifferent to inheritance.