Tiger Woods is making his return to playing golf in front of a live crowd for the first time in more than a year.
The TGL announced late Monday night that Woods will play for his Juniper Link team in the second match of the indoor league’s finals at SoFi Center on Tuesday. His team trails Los Angeles 1-0 in the three-match series after dropping Monday’s opener 6-5.
He has not played in an event since the 2024 Open Championship.
The 15-time major winner has spent the TGLs season as cheerleader and coach for his Juniper squad of Max Homa, Tom Kim and Kevin Kisner. He will help them try to even things up against Los Angeles’ Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood and Sahith Theegala.
Jupiter alternate Akshay Bhatia is leaving to play the Hero Indian Open this week on the European tour.
The 50-year-old Woods, who is recovering from back surgery in October, has been coy about whether he will play in this year’s Masters two weeks from now without ruling it out.
A TGL return is a positive first step.
“Well, I think that I have been trying to play each and every one of these matches. I’ve been trying to come back. But it just hasn’t worked out that way,” Woods said last week about possibly playing a TGL match, per Golf Digest.
“I’ve had a bad run of injuries last year. I think it’s been a year and a few days since I blew out my Achilles [last March]. And so then I’ve had two back operations. So it’s been a little rough go. But the guys here, this team, we have so much fun, I really don’t want to screw up the lineup, I just want these guys to keep playing.”
