Tiger Woods will star on our TV screens on Saturday night when he headlines the latest edition of The Match alongside Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. The action kicks off at 6 p.m. ET on TNT with some pregame and a roundtable chat with the players, and they’ll tee off shortly after that.
Woods withdrew from the previous week’s event, his foundation’s Hero World Challenge, with plantar fasciitis, but he should be good to go for Saturday. This one’s only 12 holes and he gets a cart, a far cry from the 72 holes he would have played in the no-cut tournament in The Bahamas.
It will be an exciting month if you are a Woods fan, too, as he’s committed to the PNC Championship on Dec. 17-18. He’ll team up with his son, Charlie, for the third straight year. (He also gets a cart in that event.)
But where might we see Woods play in 2023? He gave us an idea last week at the Hero.
Where we might see Tiger Woods play next
Woods has said for some time now his playing schedule won’t be near what it was several years ago when he was healthier, and things changed even more following his February 2021 car accident.
At the Hero, Woods was asked his schedule goal for next year.
“The goal is to play just the major championships and maybe one or two more. That’s it. I mean, physically that’s all I can do,” Woods said. “I told you guys, you know, the beginning of this year, too. I don’t have much left in this [right] leg, so gear up for the biggest ones and hopefully, you know, lightning catches in a bottle and I’m up there in contention with a chance to win, and hopefully I remember how to do that.
“But again, giving myself a chance to get out there again. As I said, I didn’t expect to play three majors this year. We were hoping for just the British Open, but I was able to get two more in there, so that was a big positive.”
So, what might that look like next season? For starters, here’s the majors schedule, which he said he’d like to play if he can.
April 6-9: Masters, Augusta National, Augusta, Ga.
May 18-21: PGA Championship, Oak Hill, Rochester, N.Y.
June 15-18: U.S. Open, LA Country Club, Los Angeles, Calif.
July 20-23: Open Championship, Royal Liverpool, Hoylake, Wirral, England
But what are the one or two other events Woods might play? You’d have to assume there are only a few in consideration. Woods has won at Torrey Pines eight times in his career (including one U.S. Open), so the Farmers Insurance Open on Jan. 25-28 could be an option. He hasn’t played it since he was T9 in 2020 but was top 25 in ’18, ’19 and ’20. The bad news? The Farmers isn’t one of the Tour’s elevated events for 2023, meaning Woods might not bother.
One of the most likely options is The Genesis Invitational, which is Feb. 16-19 at Riviera and is an elevated event. More importantly, Woods is the tournament host and his TGR Foundation is the primary charitable beneficiary. It’s one of a handful of events on Tour that has invitational status and one Woods might want to try after he was a non-playing host the past two years. The bad news? It’s a lot of work to be an event’s host, let alone player-host. It’d be a good excuse, if Woods wanted it, to just focus on his hosting duties that week.
After 20-plus years, Tiger Woods is changing a key piece of gear for The Match
The biggest non-major is the Players Championship, March 9-12, which also comes a week after the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which likely means Woods wouldn’t target Bay Hill if he plans to compete in the Players. Woods has entered the Players just twice (2018, 2019) in the last seven years. (It was canceled in 2020.)
The other possible Woods start might be the Memorial, Jack Nicklaus’ event, which is June 1-4.
So there are some potential Woods starts for 2023, but just for fun let’s make some actual predictions — which really makes no sense because Woods is unpredictable and injuries can pop up at any time and influence any start, but hey, let’s do it anyway. In this reporter’s mind, if Woods only plays two non-majors, it will probably be the Genesis and the Players, which would give him one start a month for six months straight. The Players is probably the one he’d most like to compete in, but it also wouldn’t be surprising to see Woods elect to be a non-playing host again at the Genesis.
“I love competing; I love the sport,” Woods said at the Hero. “I’ve been playing it for most, well, basically all my life. And you know, actually, I’ve been a pro for more than half my life. So if you look at it in those terms, I’ve been a part of this sport and I’ve loved it. It’s just unfortunate I’m not able to do the things that I feel mentally I can do, the body just kind of rejects it. When I was at home, I was shooting 4, 5, 6, 7 under par like it was nothing, but I was in a cart. Now you add in walking and that goes away. So I need to get to where, the point is where I can actually walk around and play that way.”
