After playing just nine rounds over the first 11 months of 2022, Tiger Woods is poised to play seven more in the next three weeks. Woods has officially committed to play the PNC Championship Dec. 16-17 in Orlando with his son, Charlie. This marks the end of a three-week stretch in which Tiger will have played the Hero World Challenge (which his foundation hosts), The Match (alongside Rory McIlroy and against Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas) and finally the PNC.
Tiger and Charlie finished second in 2021 at the PNC Championship behind John Daly and his son, John II, despite a scorching second nine from the Woods’ on the second day of the two-round event. It was an exhibition tournament that somehow turned into one of the most fun days of the golf year.
It’s true that Woods’ next seven rounds won’t be played with anything near the intensity of his last nine — four at the Masters, three at the PGA Championship and two at the Open Championship at St. Andrews — but it’s still a2 bit surprising to see Woods tee it up this often during golf’s quietest season. Each event makes sense in a vacuum, but on the whole it’s a lot of golf for somebody who is still recovering from a nearly severed leg in a car wreck at the beginning of 2021.
It should also be encouraging for those who want to see a lot of Woods in 2023. We will speculate about his schedule at a later date — perhaps after seeing how he looks in these three events — but it’s difficult to envision Woods, barring a setback, playing three exhibitions at the end of 2022 and then sitting out the biggest events of the competitive golf year in 2023. At the very least, Woods will very likely play in at least if not all four of the major championships.
That’s then, though, and this is now. In the dark of the (admittedly) short golf offseason, Tiger will be a massive draw and a ton of fun to watch, perhaps most of all at the PNC Championship. Because while seeing him at the Hero alongside Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa and Scottie Scheffler and at The Match with McIlroy, Thomas and Spieth will be great, watching his son emulate a dad (who is also the best to ever do it) at this event for the third year in a row will probably be the most joyful of them all.