Woods not listed in field for next week’s Players Championship

NEW YORK (Reuters): Tiger Woods will not be competing in the 50th edition of The Players Championship next week as his name did not appear on the field list when it was released after the deadline on Friday.

Woods, who previously said he hoped to play once a month on the PGA Tour this year, has not competed since his season debut three weeks ago was cut short due to illness.

The 15-times major champion now has three more opportunities to play competitively ahead of the April 11-14 Masters, which is the first major championship of the season.

Should he want another start ahead of the Masters, Woods’ options are the March 21-24 Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida; the March 28-31 Texas Children’s Houston Open; and the April 4-7 Valero Texas Open in San Antonio.

Woods made his only Valspar Championship appearance in 2018, finishing in a share of second. He was third at the 1996 Texas Open and has never played the Houston Open.

The 48-year-old made his highly-anticipated season debut three weeks ago at Riviera where he dealt with back spasms during the first round and withdrew from the second round while on the seventh hole due to a bout of the flu.

Riviera marked Woods’ first PGA Tour start since last April’s Masters, where he withdrew before completing the third round because of plantar fasciitis.

Woods had ankle surgery later that month and spent most of the rest of the year recovering before returning to professional golf at the end of November in an unofficial PGA Tour event.

The Players Championship is March 14-17 at TPC Sawgrass. World number one Scottie Scheffler is the defending champion and one of nine former title holders in the 144-player field.