Viraat Badhwar, a sophomore at Stanford, met his idol Tiger Woods on Saturday and shot 11-under-par 59 to break the record on the Stanford Golf Course by two strokes the next day.
Badhwar shared the old mark of 61 with Mariah Stackhouse of the Cardinal women’s team.
“My first 59, it was a pretty cool experience,” Badhwar, who is from Australia, told Golfweek. “I just kind of got on a roll. … It was fun.”
Badhwar said of meeting Woods: “It was my first time meeting him. It was a dream come true really, because I’ve been looking up to him since I was 7 years old.”
The Stanford course measures a modest 6,727 yards from the back tees, but has a 73.8 rating and a slope of 138.
Woods was in the Bay Area to help induct Notah Begay III, his friend and former Cardinal teammate, into the Stanford Hall of Fame on Saturday night. He also attended Stanford’s 34-17 football victory over Washington State on Friday night.
On Sunday, he was in the Eastbay to watch the Oakland Raiders’ 31-28 loss to the San Diego Chargers at the O.co Coliseum. A longtime Raider fan, Woods posed for pictures with Raider great Tim Brown and with fans in the infamous Black Hole.
