SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Gary Woodland walked through the tunnel to the Phoenix Open’s 16th hole, the par 3 with an atmosphere more like a football game than a golf tournament. Waiting for him was a young lady in a purple shirt with some game of her own.

After hitting his tee shot, Woodland asked Amy, a Special Olympics athlete, if she wanted to take a crack at it. Absolutely, she said.

Amy made a good swing , but the ball caromed into the greenside bunker. Woodland asked Amy if she wanted to hit the bunker shot.

“I do. I’ve got this,” she told the Phoenix Open’s defending champion.

She sure did. With fans lining the triple-decker stadium that surrounds the hole, Amy thumped the ball onto the green with perfect form, got at read from her new PGA Tour friend and drained the putt. Woodland raised his arms in triumph as the already rowdy practice-round crowd roared.

“I’ve been blessed to do lot of cool things on the golf course, but that is by far the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced,” Woodland said Wednesday. “She was phenomenal and then to step up in front of all the people and the crowd and everything and to hit the shots that she hit and made par, I never rooted so hard for somebody on a golf course. It was an emotional, emotional, really cool experience.”

Woodland had one of his own a year ago at the Phoenix Open.

Winless for nearly five years on the PGA Tour and coming off a difficult summer, Woodland put on a display of power and finesse at TPC Scottsdale to beat Chez Reavie on the first hole of a playoff.

Waiting for him greenside was a surprise visitor: infant son Jaxson with wife Gabby.

Jaxson was born prematurely the previous June after a twin girl was lost in a miscarriage.