Tiger Woods will not feature in the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass this week in one of the PGA Tour’s most prestigious events.
It comes after Woods completed four rounds at The Genesis Invitational, a tournament he hosts at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, concluding with a final-round 73 to finish T45.
It was the 47-year-old’s first competitive action since being cut at last year’s Open Championship, which promises to be his last at the Old Course at St Andrews.
Woods, whose ex-girlfriend Erica Herman announced this week she is suing him over an ‘aggressive NDA,’ attracted controversy during the tournament last month after playing a prank on friend and two-time major winner Justin Thomas.
Woods outdrove Thomas in the first round and then handed his fellow player a tampon as they walked down the fairway.
Woods later apologised for the sexist gesture, but when can we expect to see Woods back in action?
Well, while not confirmed, Woods is all but guaranteed to tee it up at the Masters at Augusta, which starts 6 April.
A five-time winner of the green jacket, most recently in 2019, Woods is rigorously preparing his body to compete in the first major of the season.
Woods has turned down opportunities to back up his performance at the Genesis and play on familiar courses on the PGA Tour, such as Bay Hill for the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
“Well, I am sure you will see me in some place,” Woods told CBS. “Competitively, I don’t know. My goal each and every year from here going forward is to play in all the majors - I am not going to play too much more than that. My body and my leg and my back just won’t allow me to play much more than that anymore.
“So that was my goal last year and I was able to play three of the four and this year, I can hopefully play all four. That is going to be my schedule going forward because of all of the limitations I have.”
After the Masters, Woods has the US Open at Los Angeles Country Club from 15-18 June before the Open at Hoylake from 20-23 July and then finally the PGA Championship from 18-21 May at Oak Hill.
“My game is fine,” Woods added. “Yeah, it is rusty. I made some silly mistakes here and there and I didn’t quite pick up the speed of the greens each and every day fast enough, like I normally would if I was playing.“But overall, I feel like I hit the ball like I have been hitting it at home. I just had to bring it out here where I had to walk from point A to point B and that was always the difficulty of it.
“I am just so thankful for all my team for getting me ready each and every night, morning, to at least give myself a chance to go out there and play. I was able to do it.”
