Tiger Woods set golf Twitter ablaze on Sunday afternoon when it looked like he was abandoning his traditional final-round red Nike shirt for a shade of pink at the 2019 Farmers Insurance Open.
Woods, who began his final round on the Torrey Pines South Course from No. 10 tee, appeared to be wearing a shirt with pink stripes. Of course, the reaction was swift and completely reasonable.
However, this appears to be another case of cameras playing tricks on the human eye. Just like that picture with the dress that was either gold or blue, this was a bit of an optical illusion. Leave it to long-time Woods friend, former Stanford teammate and current Golf Channel analyst Notah Begay III to clear things up for us.
Woods was in fact wearing red on Sunday at Torrey Pines. And he was in fact wearing stripes. The pattern of the shirt in question is called Gym Red. When Begay shared an image of the shirt with the same shirt Woods wore in September 2018 when he won the Tour Championship for his 80th PGA Tour victory, the contrast became clear.
Tiger hasn’t gone away from his traditional “Red Shirt” on Sunday! Today’s shirt is “Gym Red” and also pictured on far left is a blade collar red camo & the middle shirt he wore to win the tour championship. #NikeGolf
Nike Dri-FIT TW Vapor
Style#: BQ6722-687
Color: Gym Red pic.twitter.com/F0dqoJJ08g— Notah Begay III (@NotahBegay3) January 27, 2019
The shirt is red. Woods isn't ready to abandon red yet, perhaps despite his feelings about Patrick Reed copying his Sunday red choice.
Woods has certainly worn was borders on pink on Sundays in the past, but the man's record is pretty much peerless when it comes to sticking with a color on Sunday and rocking it every darn time. He began wearing red out of fear of tempting fate, but he's stuck with it ever since. Woods has previously explained why he wears red on Sundays.
“I've worn red ever since my college days basically, or junior golf days – big events on the last day,” Woods said. “I just stuck with it out of superstition, and it worked. I just happened to choose a school (Stanford) that actually was red, and we wore red on our final day of events. So it worked out.”
It appears the Gym Red style worked for Woods. After an even-par first nine -- actually played on the back nine -- on Sunday, Woods came home bogey-free on the final nine to move well up the leaderboard.
