Charlie Woods’ golf coach breaks his silence about his REAL potential… and the time Tiger called him a ‘cart b****’
A small plaque sits on the desk in front of Toby Harbeck. It carries his name but it doesn’t have room to detail all the roles he juggles from this cramped, wood-paneled office above the gymnasium of the Benjamin School.
Harbeck’s titles include athletic director, English teacher and boys’ golf coach. He’s a self-styled ‘cheerleader’ and ‘part-psychologist,’ too. One former pupil refers to the 69-year-old as simply ‘old man.’ Tiger Woods recently christened him: ‘Cart b****.’
Harbeck has been teaching at this private school in Palm Beach since 1983. His specialty is grammar, spelling and sentence composition. He started off coaching football too, but soon took over the boys’ golf team. ‘I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,’ he admits.
Over the past four decades Harbeck has coached a conveyor belt of famous children including the sons of Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, two-time major winner Tony Jacklin, 1997 Open champion Justin Leonard and ex-PGA Tour star Olin Browne.
Kai Trump, the president’s 18-year-old granddaughter, plays for the girls’ team. And among Harbeck’s current crop? Charlie Woods.
The 16-year-old has just finished his junior season at Benjamin. Next year he will return as one of Harbeck’s captains. ‘He’s grown up a lot in three years and I think he’s going to be even better next year,’ the coach says in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail. ‘He wants to be perfect. And that doesn’t fall far from the tree.’
It has been a breakout 12 months for Woods Jr., who won his first AJGA title in May and then finished tied-ninth at the Junior PGA Championship. Harbeck has had a better view than most as the teenager attempts to swing his way out of golf’s longest shadow.
‘I can tell immediately when he hits the shot… whether it’s good or bad,’ the coach says. There are subtle signs in Charlie’s head movement and follow-through. ‘I can’t describe it to you. But I can always tell.’
The walls of his office are covered in memories and mementos compiled over four decades: pictures, trophies, cuttings and tributes from former pupils.
Recently, Harbeck had to find space for more silverware after the Benjamin Buccaneers won the fifth state championship of his tenure – the second in three years with Woods on the team. Charlie was among this season’s MVPs and Tiger played his part too.
‘Every state championship we’ve been to with Charlie, he’s been there for us,’ Harbeck explains. The 15-time major winner first turned up to a match during his son’s freshman year. ‘I could tell he was a little jittery,’ Harbeck recalls. ‘He came up to me on the second or third hole [and asked]: ‘Coach, what can I do… I don’t want to break any rules or get us disqualified.’
Harbeck had only one red line: don’t be in the middle of the fairway with Charlie. Woods obliged. A few years on, and he is part of the team. ‘We treat Tiger as dad… like all my other nine players’ [parents],’ Harbeck says. ‘We don’t give him any special privileges.’ And that’s how the golf legend likes it.
Still, he has proved a useful ‘weapon’ – particularly around the greens. Tiger has improved Charlie’s short game ‘a lot,’ Harbeck says. And, for high school rivals, nothing makes a putt more nerve-wracking than knowing Woods is watching.
The Benjamin boys are decked out in Woods’ Sun Day Red clothing line and, a couple of years back, he caddied for Charlie at an event. The state championships were held at the same course a few weeks later and Tiger shared all his notes with Harbeck’s players. They won.
A framed picture from that day hangs in this office. ‘This was [Woods] getting ready to hug me,’ Harbeck explains. ‘I’m not weak. But he [just] about took the air out of my chest! That man is strong.’
Harbeck continues: ‘He’s very kind to my kids and very funny.’ Very different to how Woods can be in front of a camera, then. ‘There’s a wall that goes up,’ the coach says. ‘And I’m on the other side of that wall, which is great.’
For last season’s team party, Woods sent down food from his restaurant in Jupiter; this year the team had a banquet at the home of his ex-wife, Charlie’s mom, Elin Nordegren. That night Harbeck honored his four MVPs.
‘I tried to come up with something clever to say about each one of them,’ he recalls. ‘And I had heard this, years ago, about dad: big-time players step up in big-time moments. And boy, did [Charlie] step up that last round.’ He shot a 68 to help secure the state championship.
It takes an hour or so but, eventually, talk of Tiger makes way for the elephant in Harbeck’s office: how far can his son go?
‘It’s so unfair to compare,’ Harbeck says. But? ‘He’s got all the tools… he is a lot more driven than a lot of kids I’ve seen.’
He can make shots few teenagers can, too. Harbeck recalls one particularly hazardous tee shot.
A creek runs through the fairway, forcing almost everyone to lay up. Not Charlie. ‘It’s 320 [yards] to clear the creek,’ Harbeck explains. ‘He cleared it by about 15 yards. And I thought: ‘Wow, wow… he has another gear, if he wants it.”
No wonder, then, that the coach says: ‘Nothing would surprise me. And I hope it works out. I just want him to be happy in whatever he does, whether it’s golf or selling real estate or doing nothing. I don’t care. Just be happy. And that’s what I want for all my kids.’
The Benjamin School, where tuition can near $40,000 a year, has two Palm Beach campuses. Both Woods Jr. and Trump Jr. have graduated to the upper school but Harbeck is still based at the middle school, just off PGA Boulevard, where mirror-windowed buildings surround a sports field.
Around 3pm, 300 cars – almost all luxury SUVs – funnel into the pick-up area over 30 hectic minutes.
Harbeck opened his door to the Daily Mail shortly before Christmas. Armed security guards had covered their carts in tinsel and up in his office, the coach was still basking in another successful season.
‘I just love being with my kids. I know it drives my wife crazy because I’m never home in the fall,’ Harbeck says. ‘[But] they make me laugh. They make me feel young.’ He will turn 70 next year and his eyes glaze over as he ponders all they have achieved. Harbeck knows he can’t go on forever.
Between August and November, his team practices two hours every day. The players routinely bond over bowling or dinner too. ‘We have so much fun. And that’s what keeps me wanting to come back,’ Harbeck says. There is, however, one issue: they only ever want to eat at Chick-fil-A, LongHorn or Texas Roadhouse. ‘I get so sick of it!’ Harbeck says.
But who can argue with the results? Last month, Woods and co shot the second lowest score ever recorded in the state championship. Not that Harbeck wants any credit. His role, he says, is about motivation, planning and support rather than technique.
He tries not to interfere too much, given that 90 percent of his players have the best golf teachers in the world. Even Tiger will bite his tongue. Harbeck once confided in him that he felt Charlie was too gung-ho off the tee. ‘Coach,’ Tiger told him. ‘It’s all a process. I went through it when I was a young kid. He’ll learn.’
Still, it must be daunting to work with the children of sporting royalty? ‘Not really,’ Harbeck says. ‘It’s fun.’ And it can make life easier.
‘There are no greater supporters of this team than Jack and Barbara Nicklaus,’ he says of the 18-time major champion. ‘My first year, we didn’t have a bus so I used to take my car and drive over to Jack and Barbara’s.’
There, he would pick up the keys to Barbara’s station wagon and pile the boys in it. ‘That’s how we got to matches back then,’ he says. ‘I just sent them a note saying, after 42 years, how much I appreciate [them].’ The truth? Harbeck wouldn’t be in this job without the Nicklaus clan.
Harbeck’s office is covered in memories and mementos collected over the past four decades
Back in 1983, Gary Nicklaus – the family’s second son – was in ninth grade at Benjamin. ‘You need to be the golf coach,’ he told Harbeck, who replied: ‘Gary, I don’t know anything about golf.’ But that didn’t matter.
‘Just be the coach and I’ll teach you everything you need to know,’ Nicklaus Jr told him. ‘And that’s how it started.’
Woods Jr. is rather more reserved. Charlie took Harbeck’s grammar class in seventh grade. ‘A fabulous student,’ he says.
Harbeck taught Woods’ sister Sam, too. The 18-year-old – now at Stanford – was one of the hardest working kids he’s ever taught. As for Charlie? ‘Very quiet. I didn’t have to explain anything to him more than once,’ Harbeck says. ‘Very smart… Charlie could probably go to any school in the country.’
The 16-year-old is still deciding his next move. He has three colleges to choose from and the road ahead remains fraught with bumps.
Gary Nicklaus, now 56, reached the PGA Tour but he was ‘never the same,’ Harbeck says, after appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated while still at Benjamin.
So far, Woods Jr. has been shielded from too much scrutiny. He has been forced to cope with crowds – particularly when Tiger is watching. Teammates moonlight as bodyguards and Charlie is happy to share the spotlight.
At a recent tournament, the 16-year-old turned down an interview. Others had posted lower scores and he told Harbeck: ‘Let them talk to somebody that did something special.’
Not that Woods Jr. lacks confidence. Last year, Harbeck watched as he lined up an approach shot. ‘Let’s hit that to 10 feet,’ the coach told Charlie, who addressed the ball and then backed off. ‘I’ll never forget,’ Harbeck says. ‘He looked at me and said: ‘Coach, this is going inside three feet.’ It did.
Sometimes, Harbeck has a tougher job keeping the parents happy. One mom calls at all hours of the night – ‘she drives my wife nuts!’ – and two very close friends haven’t spoken to Harbeck since he picked Charlie for the state championships in his freshman year.
After they won, Harbeck asked Tiger to take a photo with the boys. Woods refused unless all the other parents were included, too.
Two years later, after another title win, every player and every parent came together for that picture.
There is a red flag pegged to the wall near the door of Harbeck’s office. It mysteriously went missing after the recent state championships. Shortly before Christmas, Harbeck’s players presented it to him. They had all signed it. Most simply printed their names – Woods Jr. had already mastered his signature.
