Boy, 12, Out-Drives Tiger Woods

by Tom Henderson

Categories: In The News, Weird But True,Amazing Kids, Sports

http://www.parentdish.com/2009/10/22/tiger-woods-out-driven-by-12-year-old-boy/

http://www.parentdish.com/2009/10/22/tiger-woods-out-driven-by-12-year-old-boy/?icid=main|main|dl3|link2|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.parentdish.com%2F2009%2F10%2F22%2Ftiger-woods-out-driven-by-12-year-old-boy%2F

It doesn't matter if you're the fastest gun or the greatest brain surgeon. Someday, some kid is going to come along and show you up.

That day came for golf legend Tiger Woods on Oct. 4. He was out-driven by a 12-year-old kid.

A video from NBC Philadelphia tells the tale. Woods was in North Carolina to open a new golf course and hit a few tee-shots down the fairway. Two of them landed in the trees. Then he asked if anyone in the crowd thought they could do better.

Mark Benevento Jr. of New Jersey stepped forward. The pre-teen shot the ball 200 yards, right down the middle. Woods was stunned. "Do that again," he said. "We've got to see that again."

So the lad did it again.

"I was surprised because I thought I was going to top it or something," the middle schooler told the NBC affiliate. "[Woods] was clapping. He was really surprised that I could actually hit it."

More than surprised, he was duly impressed. "Well done, bud. Well done," he told Mark. "I'm proud of you."

Mark's father, Mark Benevento Sr., owns the Great Bay Country Club in Somers Point, N.J. He told NBC his son usually shoots in the high 70s. The father and son traveled to North Carolina to hear Woods speak at the first-ever Tiger Woods-designed golf course, still under development at The Cliffs at High Carolina.

"He [Woods] called me from a crowd of, like, 100 people," Mark told NBC. "I wasn't really nervous, but I got nervous when I stepped up."

You couldn't tell from his performance.