Can’t control these cubs! Tiger Woods‘ young kids, Charlie and Sam, joked in a new interview with USA Today on Monday, December 28, that they would rather be soccer superstar Lionel Messi over their golf champion dad.
The paper’s golf reporter, Steve DiMeglio, spent some time with Woods, 39, on the Albany golf course in the Bahamas, and the athlete’s 8-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son tagged along. While the Woods household is all about golf, the kids are particularly wild about another sport: soccer. Naturally, DiMeglio asked them if they would rather be Messi on the pitch or their father on the course?
“‘Messi,’ Sam immediately said with a big smile and a giggle,” DiMeglio recalled.
Charlie, who the reporter described as “more reserved,” also replied Messi. “He’s playing,” Woods’ son noted after a pause. (Woods is currently out of the game due to a back injury.)
Their father, however, went along with it. According to DiMeglio, Woods’ jokingly dropped his head and laughed out loud. “Well,” the athlete said, “he’s right.”
Woods has come a long way since his sex scandal erupted six years ago, and remains on good terms with Sam and Charlie’s mom, his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren. “She’s one of my best friends,” the golfer claimed in a recent interview with Time. “We’re able to pick up the phone, and we talk to each other all the time. We both know that the most important things in our lives are our kids. I wish I would have known that back then.”
And while Woods would like to play soccer with his kids, he’s currently on the road to recovery.
“The kids are so into soccer, and they always want to play, and I can’t do that,” Woods told USA Today on Monday. “I have to be the best cheerleader I can possibly be. But still, it’s nothing like interacting with my kids and being a part of their lives and being out there with them. I just hope I can do that soon. If I can get to that, then we can start talking about golf.”
