Yorktown’s Brandon Sipe is a budding golf star. Even his playing partner’s caddie and dad, Tiger Woods, was impressed during a recent round.

Even as the father/caddie of perhaps the United States’ best eighth-grade golfer, Stephen Sipe of Yorktown felt something he hadn’t experienced in about four decades.

His son Brandon had just finished practicing on the driving range on Nov. 6 in Kinder, Louisiana, as he warmed up for a practice round. The Notah Begay III Junior Golf National Championship, where Brandon Sipe was the defending champion in the boys 12-13 age group, would start the next day.

As Stephen was cleaning Brandon’s clubs, “I felt something and it made me turn around. This guy had this aura around him.”

“This guy” was the father of a boy named Charlie, who would be one of Brandon’s two playing partners the next day. “This guy” was Tiger Woods.

“Tiger and Charlie were right behind me. It was like a wave, just this burst of energy.”

Stephen, a former tennis player for James Madison and a former longtime boys tennis coach for Menchville High, compared it to 1983, when he saw John McEnroe play indoors in Richmond.

McEnroe, though, didn’t have an entourage like the Woodses.

“Along with that energy were these NFL lineman-type bodyguards around him,” Stephen said. “Unless you were playing with him, you couldn’t get within 60 feet of him on either side. He’s protecting his kid.”

Though rusty from a hand injury, Brandon tied for third among 32 golfers in his age group in the 54-hole event, shooting 8-under-par 205, and landed a deal for Ping clubs “worth $2,700,” Stephen said.

Brandon recounted when he found out his first-round pairing. The Sipes had never met the Woodses.

“My mom (Claudia) was calling me over and I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ She said, ‘Tiger’s here.’ So I thought, that’s gonna be a really great experience. I just treated it like he was a normal guy watching.”

With Tiger caddying for Charlie and watching, Brandon holed a chip for a birdie-3 on the first hole. Despite barely missing a few putts, he birdied three of the last four holes to shoot a 5-under 66, his best round of the event, beating the world’s most famous golfer’s son by six shots that day. Charlie went on to place 11th at 212 on the Koasati Pines at Coushatta course.

“He was really cool,” Brandon said of Charlie. “He has a lot of pressure to be like his dad.”

Stephen added, “”Brandon and Charlie got along real good. They were talking out there like kids. I liked the chemistry between those two. You could see they were having a good time. Didn’t even faze Brandon.”

In the second round, Brandon eagled the 18th hole, nearly holing a shot from the fairway from about 180 yards for a double eagle.

Highlights of the tournament will be on The Golf Channel from 7-9 p.m. on Wednesday. Californian Cole Kim won the age 12-13 group with a 15-under 198, and Brandon’s aggressiveness on the third round’s back nine to try to catch him probably cost him second place, Stephen said.

“Tiger told one of the sponsors Charlie has played a lot of kids, but this is the first one that’s actually impressed him. That’s a big deal,” Stephen said. “(Brandon) wasn’t even playing his best. ... He couldn’t hold a club for a week and a half.”

That’s because while at a team golf event the week before, some of his teammates were playing football. One threw the ball to him near a window, and he instinctively caught it so the window wouldn’t break. But Brandon jammed fingers in the process.

Meeting Tiger, Stephen said, “His handshake was so firm, he’d make an NFL lineman cry. This guy had the firmest handshake I’ve ever felt. You meet Tiger Woods, the one thing you remember is his handshake.”

Stephen said Tiger was easy to talk with but that he was aching from plantar fasciitis, often using one of Brandon’s clubs as a cane as they watched their sons play.

Begay, the tournament host, was one of Woods’ Stanford teammates in the mid-1990s. Fortunately for the Sipes, so was Will Yanagisawa, the player development manager at Ping. Yanagisawa was impressed enough with Brandon to set up the clubs deal.

Being homeschooled and having learned much of golf himself, Brandon will try to qualify next year for key events such as the U.S. Amateur and Junior PGA Championship. He’s also planning to compete at the Eastern Amateur next summer at Elizabeth Manor Golf & Country Club in Portsmouth, and the clubs deal will help the Sipes cope with the financial pressures of playing elite-level golf.

Stephen was delighted that Begay spent about 90 minutes on the range with Brandon late in the event.

“Notah is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet,” Stephen said. “When you see what he’s done with his foundation for Native American communities, it’s pretty incredible.”

As was the Sipes’ adventure in Louisiana.