Tiger Woods is a known jokester, but his latest funny-guy moment has sent the online golf world into a full-on frenzy.<\/p>\n
During Tuesday night\u2019s TGL broadcast between Jupiter Links and New York Golf Club on ESPN, Woods caught up with\u00a0SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt for a pregame interview. Woods, who is still rehabbing a back injury, is not playing for his Links squad this season (at least not yet), necessitating a sub.<\/p>\n
Enter: Akshay Bhatia, one of the hottest young golfers on the PGA Tour. At the age of 23, Bhatia already has two wins on the PGA Tour and finished tied for third in last year\u2019s The Players Championship. He\u2019s also a favorite of Tiger\u2019s, having been invited to the past two Hero World Challenge tournaments, Woods\u2019 20-man bash in the Bahamas played each December.<\/p>\n
Bhatia made his TGL debut for the Jupiter Links on Tuesday, and in Woods\u2019 pregame interview, the 15-time major winner had an interesting nickname for the young star.<\/p>\n
\nHere is Tiger Woods calling new Jupiter Links TGL member Akshay Bhatia \u201cAshtray\u201d in an interview with Scott Van Pelt. pic.twitter.com\/2Kf0lBumb5<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 14, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Answering a question from Van Pelt about how Jupiter Links plans to turn it around from an abysmal debut season in 2025, Woods said this:<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I don\u2019t think we can play as bad as we did. There\u2019s only one way to go, is up. We were\u00a0Bad News Bears and we don\u2019t want to be the\u00a0Bad News Bears 2. No more sequels here,\u201d Woods joked. \u201cWe\u2019ve got Ashtray, er, Akshay as part of our team and he brings that youth, that excitement\u2026\u201d the superstar golfer said before getting into other members of his team.<\/p>\n
This is far from the first time Woods has let a naughty joke slip on a live broadcast. Two years ago, after out-driving his playing partner and friend Justin Thomas during the Genesis Invitational, Woods was caught slipping Thomas a tampon. The suggestion being, Justin Thomas hit it like a girl. That incident drew the ire<\/a> of many in the golf community, and Woods subsequently apologized<\/a>.<\/p>\n
So far, the reaction to this joke seems pretty subdued. One would imagine Woods wouldn\u2019t say something like that on national television if Bhatia wasn\u2019t already on board with the nickname. But now it\u2019s fully out there, and it\u2019ll be hard for Akshay Bhatia to put that genie back in the bottle. Or, that cigarette back in the pack, as it were.<\/p>\n
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