Florida State’s Class of 2027 just became the most closely watched recruiting pairing in college golf. Charlie Woods verbally committed to the Seminoles this week. Within hours of the announcement, Charlie was seen on the greens with Miles Russell.
Ziregolf dropped a carousel of Woods and Miles Russell practicing together, referring to them as FSU’s new dynamic duo. Russell had been FSU’s committed No. 1 recruit since June 2024. As of December 2025, Charlie was the only player sitting inside the AJGA’s Class of 2027 top 10 without a college home. Both are Florida natives. Both arrive in Tallahassee in the fall of 2027.
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FSU now holds verbal commitments from the top-ranked and 21st-ranked players in the country — in the same class. Two of the top juniors in America, from the same state, are choosing the same program.
Russell and Charlie are currently two of the most talked-about names in American junior golf. Russell is ranked No. 1 among juniors worldwide, has made a Korn Ferry Tour cut, and broke Tiger Woods’ AJGA record at age 14. Charlie, ranked No. 21, won a major AJGA invitational that included Russell in the field. Both have competed on the same AJGA circuit in 2025, in the same class, and have been chasing the same ranking points. In the fall of 2027, they will move from being rivals on the junior circuit to teammates at Tallahassee. The dynamic will change completely.
Charlie’s standing in those rankings required rebuilding from a low base. As recently as mid-2024, he sat in the 800s on one major junior ranking list, his resume more defined by PNC Championship appearances alongside Tiger Woods than by standalone results on the AJGA circuit. The shift began in May 2025 at Streamsong. His 54-hole total of 15-under 201 at the Team TaylorMade Invitational, a field that included Russell and four of the top five Class of 2027 players, moved him from 604th to inside the top 25 in a single result.
A T9 at the Boys Junior PGA Championship followed in July. He then shot a final-round 4-under 68 at the FHSAA Class 1A State Championship in November, the low round of the tournament at Mission Inn Resort, sealing The Benjamin School’s second state title in three years. The 2025 Rolex Junior All-American First Team selection came at year’s end. His AJGA ranking now stands at No. 21.
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Since Charlie’s PNC Championship debut in 2020, everyone expected Stanford. Tiger Woods went there in 1993, won the NCAA title in 1996, and turned pro soon after. His sister Sam is now a freshman at Stanford. But in 2023, coach Toby Harbeck made it clear: Charlie had already turned down Stanford. He was looking at programs in the Southeast. Ultimately, his final two choices were Florida State and Alabama. Stanford was never in the running.
Trey Jones watched that final round from the gallery on November 15, 2025. NCAA rules keep him from making public comments until signing day in November 2026. Russell’s commitment arrived fourteen months before Charlie’s. Jones already had the No. 1 junior in the country. Now he has the No. 21 as well, and a recruiting class that college golf programs across the country are measuring themselves against.
Miles Russell: the resume Charlie Woods is joining at FSU
Russell committed to FSU in June 2024, fourteen months before Charlie’s announcement closed the Class of 2027’s most-watched vacancy. The Jacksonville Beach native holds the No. 1 ranking in both the AJGA (807-plus points) and the Junior Golf Scoreboard. His WAGR peaked at No. 6 globally and currently sits inside the top 15.
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TPC Sawgrass has hosted the Junior PLAYERS Championship since the event’s inception. Russell has won it twice, in 2023 and 2025, the only player in the tournament’s history to do so. The 2023 Junior PGA Championship title came when he was the youngest champion the event had ever recorded. The 2025 Junior Invitational at Sage Valley and the 2025 AJGA Simplify Boys Championship followed. On the Korn Ferry Tour in 2024, he made the cut at 15 years and 5 months old, the youngest player in the history of that achievement.
The 2025 U.S. Amateur ended at the quarterfinals. The 2025 U.S. Junior Amateur produced a T5. AJGA Rolex Junior Player of the Year honors came in 2023 and again in 2025. The 2023 award at 14 years and 364 days broke the record previously held by Tiger Woods. Russell plays left-handed. He and Charlie are friends, confirmed at the time of the commitment announcement.
FSU finished as national runner-up at the 2024 NCAAs. Jones enters his 23rd season and was inducted into the Golf Coaches Association of America Hall of Fame in December 2024. Koepka, Berger, and Clanton all came through his program. Two more arrive in 2027.
The verbal commitments are confirmed. The Instagram post has 21,000 likes. What the Class of 2027 does with all of it starts in two years.
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