Tiger Woods commits to Hero World Challenge

Tiger Woods has added another competition to his calendar for next month.

Woods will play in his Hero World Challenge in the first week in December, he announced Wednesday on Twitter. It will be his first time teeing it up in competition since his emotional appearance in The Open at St. Andrews and potentially sets up a busy December for the 82-time TOUR winner.

The Hero World Challenge, which Woods has hosted since 2000, will be played Dec. 1-4 at Albany Golf Club in The Bahamas.

“I am excited to announce that I will be in the field for this year’s #HeroWorldChallenge,” Woods tweeted. In addition to Woods, Kevin Kisner and Tommy Fleetwood were added to the field on tournament exemptions. The field features seven of the top 10 players in the world – Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Will Zalatoris, Justin Thomas, Matt Fitzpatrick and Collin Morikawa – and 16 of the top 20, including breakout star Tom Kim, the only player other than Woods to win twice on the PGA TOUR before turning 21 since World War II.

Woods also is scheduled to take part in Capital One’s The Match the following week. He will partner with FedExCup champ Rory McIlroy to take on Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth on Dec. 10 at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida, and is likely to commit to the following week’s PNC Championship, where he will compete alongside his son Charlie. The Woodses finished second to John Daly and his son, John II, in last year’s PNC.

Woods, who turns 47 on Dec. 30, is still recovering from injuries sustained in a car crash in early 2021. He surprised the golf world with his return at the Masters Tournament, where he shot 71 in the first round and made the cut before fading to 47th place due to the difficulty of competing on his injured leg. He returned at the PGA Championship, where he made the cut after a second-round 69, but he had to withdraw after struggling to a 79 the following day.

Woods skipped the U.S. Open to ensure he could play in The Open at St. Andrews, site of two of his triumphs in golf’s oldest major. He missed the cut, taking an emotional walk down the 18th fairway in what may be his last competitive round at the Old Course. He has not competed since, but was spotted hitting balls last month in Pebble Beach, where he was for the TGR Junior Invitational and Tiger Woods Invitational.

“Tiger is just steadily finding ways to get a little bit more stability in his leg,” his good friend and Golf Channel commentator, Notah Begay, said in an appearance on SiriusXM last month. “It was really presenting some major challenges at St. Andrews. I had a chance to talk to him during the round out there. It’s just constant discomfort. It’s just hard to focus on golf, which is hard enough, much less having to deal with the literal pain of your leg kind of aching throughout the day. I know as soon as he feels like he can be competitive … we’ll see him.”