Tiger Woods to make PGA Tour return at Players Championship

Tiger Woods will return to the PGA Tour at the Players Championship on May 7.

The 14-time major winner has played just three tournaments so far this year and took a break to get his game ‘tournament ready’ after withdrawing from the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines due to injury.

That came the week after he had shot a career-worst 82 in missing the cut at the Waste Management Phoenix Open but he returned for the Masters with his troublesome short game looking in far better order as he finished in a tie for 17th.

And the 39-year-old has now announced on Twitter that he will tee it up at TPC Sawgrass for the tournament often labelled as the ‘fifth major’.

“Looking forward to going back to The Players this year, hoping for a repeat of 2013,” he said.

Woods’ confirmed return will dampen fears over a wrist injury he appeared to suffer during the final round at Augusta when he hit a tree root.

“A bone kind of popped out and the joint kind of went out of place, but I put it back in,” he said.

Speculation over Woods’ return had been circulating ever since the Masters when, following rounds of 73, 69, 68 and 73, he refused to confirm when he would be back in action.

“Not going to be for a while,” he said. “I have a little time off, and go back to the drawing board, work on it again, and refine what I’m doing.

“I really like what I’m doing, I got my distance back, and everything is good.”

Jack Nicklaus said this week that Woods would feature at the Memorial at Muirfield Village beginning on June 4 but he will now be back earlier than that at a tournament that he won in 2001 and 2013.