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Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer
Tiger Woods will not play in next week’s Players Championship, the PGA Tour’s flagship event, at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
Woods was not included in the 144-player field that was released by the PGA Tour on Friday. The 15-time major champion has won the event two times, most recently in 2013. He last played in the event in 2019.
Woods, 48, had previously said he hoped to play about one tournament a month as he continues to recover from fusion surgery in April. He had the procedure to address post-traumatic arthritis in his right foot and ankle caused by injuries he suffered in a car wreck outside Los Angeles in February 2021.
There’s a chance Woods might choose not to play again until the Masters, the first major championship of the season, April 11-14 at Augusta National Golf Club.
The Valspar Championship follows the Players Championship on the schedule. Woods has played in that tournament in Palm Harbor, Florida, only once in his career, tying for second in 2018. There are then two stops in Texas — the Texas Children’s Houston Open and the Valero Texas Open — before the Masters.
In Woods’ most recent start, at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club last month, he withdrew on his seventh hole of the second round because of illness that he later confirmed to be influenza. That event marked his 2024 debut.
Woods was treated at the golf club by physicians and received an IV bag.
On Monday, Woods competed in the prestigious Seminole pro-member tournament for the first time with PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh.
Since returning to professional golf after the car wreck, Woods has withdrawn or missed the cut in four of his six starts. His two finishes were a tie for 45th in the 2023 Genesis Invitational and a solo 47th in the 2022 Masters.
“My ankle doesn’t hurt anymore because no bones are rubbing anymore,” Woods said at the Genesis Invitational. “But then again, it’s different. Other parts of my body have to take the brunt of it. Just like my back is fused so other parts of my body have taken the brunt of that. I have two different body parts that are now fused. Yeah, other parts of the body have to adapt.”