Just as Tiger Woods did in 2001, winning in Northeast Florida at The Players Championship.
Just as Tiger did again in 2013, earning his second Players title at the same location.
In 2025, the dozen-year pattern has come around again, but it’s a different Woods lifting a championship trophy in Jacksonville.
Sam Woods, daughter of the golfing legend, completed her high school athletic career by helping The Benjamin School of Palm Beach Gardens win the Florida High School Athletic Association Class 1A girls track and field team championship on May 10.
Competing at the University of North Florida’s Hodges Stadium, some 9 miles from The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass where her father captured two titles in the PGA Tour’s flagship event, Sam Woods helped Benjamin to a second-place and a fourth-place finish in relays, worth 13 points.
That was enough for Benjamin (61 points) to outdistance Tallahassee Maclay (45 points) for the overall championship in Class 1A — and she did it 12 years to the day after the second round of Tiger Woods’ 2013 Players victory.
Inside Sam Woods’ state track meet
Woods, a senior, participated in four events for Benjamin.
While her two individual events didn’t score points — she came in 18th in the 100-meter hurdles and 17th in the 400 hurdles — she provided bigger contributions in the relays.
In the opening 4×800 relay, she ran the third leg and helped Benjamin finish in 9:32.40, behind only Providence (9:28.01) from Jacksonville.
And in the closing 4×400 relay, Woods handled the third leg again as Benjamin took fourth place in 4:01.83, behind Pahokee, Maclay and Lakeland Victory Christian.
The state championship is the second of 2025 for Sam Woods, who also started in central defense for Benjamin’s Class 2A girls soccer triumph over Episcopal School of Jacksonville. She scored the winning goal in the team’s district soccer tournament.
