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Tiger Woods will NOT be playing in the 2023 Players Championship after failing to enter the tournament before Friday’s deadline and the golf legend’s next event is likely to be The Masters.
Tiger Woods will not play the 2023 Players Championship before the preparation for the first Major of the year, The Masters in April.
The winner of 15 majors did not commit to the field for next week’s event at TPC Sawgrass before the 5 pm ET deadline on Friday.
The 47-year-old said late last year that he will only play the majors plus one or two more events this year as he continues his miraculous comeback from his horrible 2021 car accident, which nearly cost him his leg.
And he reiterated that point after finishing T45 at the Genesis Invitational at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles in February.
“Like I told you last year, I’m not going to play more than probably the majors and maybe a couple more,” Woods said. That’s it, that’s all my body allows me to do. My back the way it is, all the surgeries I’ve had on my back, my leg the way it is, I just can’t. That will be my future.
Tiger Woods will not play the Players Championship 2023 before the preparation for The Masters
Woods finished T45 at the Genesis Invitational at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles in February
‘So my intention last year was to play all four majors, I got three out of four. Hopefully this year I can get all four and maybe sprinkle a few here and there. But that’s it for the rest of my career. I know and I understand. That’s just my reality.
But the Players won’t be a part of Woods’ limited schedule this year as he’ll return to TPC Sawgrass just weeks after Riviera isn’t on the cards.
Woods has won twice at TPC Sawgrass, but hasn’t played the event since 2019 and hasn’t finished in the top 10 since winning in 2013.
A return, however, would have made sense given that this year’s Players Championship, the biggest event the PGA Tour hosts, is the first since players came together last summer to combat the threat of LIV Golf, a fight that Woods headlined along with his friend Rory McIlroy.
But Woods could be tactically left out of the event to prepare for the real prize, The Masters.
Woods was forced to withdraw from the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas in December due to plantar fasciitis and has had trouble walking at times due to leg injuries.
Two starts before April could have been overtaxing his leg and he could have instead opted to rest it for Augusta.
The 47-year-old has said he will only play the majors plus one or two more events this year.
Woods returned to the streets last April at The Masters 15 months after his car accident.
Woods returned to the streets last April at The Masters, his first start in 15 months after the car accident in February 2021.
Woods managed just nine rounds in 2022 due to complications surrounding the limb-threatening injuries he sustained in his car accident the previous year.
Prior to the Genesis Invitational last month, Woods had not played in a court tournament since The Open last July.
He could still play the Valspar Championship or the Texas Open, but his next start is likely to be on Thursday of the 2023 Masters at Augusta National.