Daniel Berger wasn’t to warm to the idea of Tiger Woods following him at the Presidents Cup.
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In his heyday, no one wanted to play with Tiger Woods.
The aura surrounding the man who was No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking for a record 683 weeks was so strong, his opponents often crumpled under the pressure of either catching him or keeping ahead of him.
And as it turns out, that also applies to when Woods is on the same team as you and not even playing.
On Tuesday, ahead of this week’s Masters, Justin Thomas shared a story of when one of his teammates at the 2017 Presidents Cup, Daniel Berger, had to make an uncomfortable request to then-captain Fred Couples.
As Thomas explained, Woods was serving as a vice captain for the U.S. team at Liberty National and was assigned to lead Berger’s pod of players. That didn’t sit well with Berger.
“I don’t know if he was paired with Brooks or someone, but [Berger] went to — I don’t know if it was Freddie or someone — and said, ‘Tiger can’t come with our group,’” Thomas recalled.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m too nervous playing in front of him.”
To be fair, Berger had no practice playing with Woods as the two had not and still have never been paired together on the PGA Tour. Who wouldn’t be nervous playing in front of everyone’s golf idol, who at that point was a 79-time PGA Tour winner and 14-time major champion?
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Nevertheless, Thomas said the team tried to rationalize with Berger.
“Dude, he’s on our team. Like he’s our captain,” Thomas remembered somebody telling Berger. “He’s like, ‘I can’t do it, you have to send somebody else with our group.’
“So when we thought we had him to use to our advantage, to make the other team nervous, that actually made some of our own team members nervous. So there’s that.”
The GOAT’s presence couldn’t have had too much of a negative impact on Berger, who went 2-1-0 in his first Presidents Cup appearance as the U.S. team dominated the Internationals 19-11.
And while Woods’ intimated Berger, Thomas had fun with his now-good friend in his vice captain role.
“I couldn’t wait to ask him just go make me a sandwich, like, You’re my vice captain this week. You have to do whatever I say, and all of us,” Thomas said with a laugh. “I never in my life thought I would be bossing Tiger Woods around and he had to listen to me because he’s a vice captain.”
It’s hard being a vice captain: Worrying about intimidating your own team while at the same time remembering each one’s sandwich order.
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