Tiger Woods returns to golf, announces he’ll play in the Genesis Invitational

Tiger Woods will tee off at The Genesis Invitational next week. Photo / Getty

Golf great Tiger Woods has announced his return to the PGA Tour, confirming he will play in next week’s Genesis Invitational at the Riviera Country Club.

Woods confirmed the return on X.

Excited to be a playing host next week @thegenesisinv pic.twitter.com/YvtJhe5DjB

— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) February 7, 2024

The event is organised by the Tiger Woods Foundation, and Woods will be playing in the tournament on a sponsor’s exemption as he does not meet the strict requirements set for the lineups in the eight PGA Tour signature events this year.

Signature events are small-field affairs with no cut and a US$20,000,000 prize purse. Some of the criteria to enter these events include being ranking top 30 in the world or top 50 in the previous season’s FedExCup standings. Each signature event has four sponsor’s exemptions available to PGA Tour members.

The use of those exemptions was a point of criticism heading into the Pebble Beach Pro-Am with three of the four awarded exemptions being player directors on the PGA Tour policy board, while the likes of Kiwi PGA Tour member and world No 35 Ryan Fox missed qualification.

It wasn’t something Fox took issue with, however, with the Kiwi having no issues with seeing the likes of Adam Scott or Tiger Woods securing exemptions.

“Invites are always going to be political to an extent, but I can very much see, say in Riviera...it’s Tiger’s event, and any event that Tiger plays is worth its weight in gold for TV and the Tour and everything like that,” Fox told the Herald before the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

“As far as I’m concerned, Tiger can have an invite to any tournament he wants for the rest of his life. That’s fine by me. The same with Adam Scott. Scotty won in Riviera a few years ago and it’s more than right to give him an invite into that event.”

Woods, a 15-time major winner, played just three events last year including the Genesis Invitational where he finished in a tie for 45th. He then played the Masters in April before undergoing ankle surgery which ruled him out for most of the year.

His last tournament was the 20-man Hero World Challenge where he finished 18th.