On Monday, Tiger Woods, 46, issued a statement announcing he would not compete in the upcoming Hero World Challenge, scheduled in Albany, Bahamas, from November 28 through December 4, because of an injury he had sustained while practicing.
The Hero World Challenge, hosted by Woods every year, enables a small number of top-ranked golf pros to compete and serves as a benefit for the Tiger Woods Foundation. The tournament field is comprised of 20 players, including the most recent winners of the four major PGA tournaments, the top 11 available players from the Official World Golf Ranking, the defending champion of the tournament, and two special exemption players selected by the foundation.
“In my preparations and practice for this week’s Hero World Challenge, I’ve developed plantar fasciitis in my right foot, which is making it difficult to walk,” Woods tweeted. “After consulting with my doctors and trainers, I have decided to withdraw this week and focus on my hosting duties. My plan is still to compete in The Match and PNC Championship.”
— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) November 28, 2022
Unlike the Hero World Challenge, at The Match and the PNC Championship Woods can use a golf cart.
Since the Hero World Challenge was founded in 2000, Woods has won it five times: 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2011. Jordan Spieth recorded the lowest score recorded in the tournament in 2014 at 262, 26 under par.
Woods played his last competitive round at the Open Championship in mid-July; he has played a total of nine rounds on the tour this year in three tournaments: the Masters, the PGA Championship and The Open in Great Britain. He finished 47th at The Masters and withdrew after the third round at the PGA Championship. He missed the cut at The Open.
Woods, the towering figure who dominated golf for two decades, now ranks 1,277th in the world. He has amassed a total of 15 Grand Slam titles, second only to the legendary golf titan Jack Nicklaus, who won 18. Those four tournaments include The Masters, The Open Championship (aka the British Open), the US Open, and the PGA Championship.
Only Bobby Jones completed the Grand Slam, which entails winning the four championships in the same calendar year; Woods won the four titles consecutively but they were not in the same calendar year. Ben Hogan won all but the PGA in the same year, 1953, but the PGA overlapped the British Open, so it was impossible for Hogan to compete there.