Tiger Woods commits to the 2022 World of Heroes Challenge, the second of three potential December events
After playing just nine rounds in the first 10 months of 2022, Tiger Woods is poised to get close to getting there over the next month and a half. Woods announced Wednesday that he will be playing the self-hosted World of Heroes Challenge December 1-4 in the Bahamas.
Woods joins a field he recruits, which includes Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, and Tom Kim. Most of the top 20 golfers in the world will attend this four-round event at Albany Golf Course, and although it is not considered an official PGA Tour event, the World Heroes Challenge does not receive points. Official World Golf Ranking. (Tiger could use some of those after taking so long over the past two years.)
In addition to the World of Heroes Challenge, Tiger will host on December 10 at the seventh edition of The Match alongside Rory McIlroy. Those two will play against Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas in a 12-hole exhibit at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida.
Additionally, Woods is expected to play with his son, Charlie, at the PNC Championship on December 17-18. While he has not officially committed to the PNC, this will likely be the year. for the third time in a row he and Charlie will play in that event. If Woods commits to the PNC, we’ll see him play seven rounds in 18 days in December after he hit the field just nine rounds in the first 334 days of 2022.
Woods finished 47th at masters then withdrew after the third round of the PGA Championship and completely missed the match at The Open in July.
Tiger hasn’t played the World of Heroes Challenge since 2019 when he finished fourth, four times behind winner Henrik Stenson. It is expected that he will ride the trolley for The Match and PNC (if he competes), but it is not yet known whether he will walk or take the trolley for the World of Heroes Challenge.
While Woods’ golf ambitions are immediately encouraging what his 2023 schedule will look like, don’t expect him to appear at much other than the major championships, if he does. even played all four of them. At last year’s Hero World Challenge, Tiger advised people to be cautious in projecting his schedule in the future.
“I can’t predict that this leg will go back to the way it was, so I’ll never have my foot back and the clock is ticking,” Woods said. “I’m getting older. I’m not young anymore. All of that combined means a full schedule and a full training schedule and the recovery needed to do that – no, I don’t have any desire to do it, but to enhance a few events during the year… like Mr. [Ben] Hogan did – he did a pretty good job at it, and there’s no reason why I couldn’t do it and feel ready. “
We’ll see how many events are “a few events a year,” but there’s certainly reason to be optimistic with Woods filling his December with golf.
