Oh Hell Yes: Tiger Woods Is Set To Play In A Golf Tournament Next Month

Multiple sources have told Barstool Sports (I mean that seriously, by the way, not ironically) that Tiger Woods is planning to play in next month's Hero World Challenge (Dec. 1-4), a limited-field tournament he hosts in the Bahamas. The Associated Press wrote on Tuesday morning that Woods is "expected" to tee it up in the 20-man unofficial event. 

This, of course, is excellent news for the entire golf world. The Hero's a sneaky fun watch, with 20 of the top players in the world cruising around a hyper-exclusive club in the Bahamas—it's called Albany, and Justin Bieber and Drake are among those who spend some time there. Fifteen of the top 18 players in the world rankings will compete, and merely making the Hero is a reward for a solid year. Last place pays $100,000, and the event actually offers world ranking points, much to LIV Golf's chagrin. 

But having Tiger in the field? That brings the event to an entirely new level. He was on-site last year as a host, not a participant, and gave his first press conference since the accident. He then totally and completely stole the show when he started hitting balls on the back side of the range during competition—we didn't know it at the time, but he was ramping up to play in the PNC Championship alongside his son, Charlie, which came a few weeks after the Hero. 

Woods has already committed to play in the latest edition of The Match on Dec. 10 alongside Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, and once that news dropped, you had to think the Hero was a legitimate possibility given it's the week before. The big difference, of course, is that The Match will be 12 holes, Woods will be riding in a cart, and he doesn't have to grind out bogeys. Tournament golf is an entirely different sport from recreational golf, and Woods has said countless times that playing casually while riding is not a problem. It's the physical exertion required for four days of tournament golf that makes things dicey, as it did at the PGA Championship, where he withdrew after three rounds, and at the Open Championship, where he badly missed the cut at St. Andrews. 

Woods has not hit a competitive shot since then and has said multiple times throughout this comeback that he will never play anything resembling a full schedule again. His bionic right leg simply won't allow him. Because Woods is so fiercely personal he doesn't show the preparation and the recovery necessary for him to play even one round, let alone four. The majors jump out as the tournaments he's most likely to play in, but those also tend to be the most grueling tests of the year. The Genesis Invitational at Riviera, the event he hosts on the PGA Tour, is also a strong possibility. Then there's the Hero, and that's about it. 

Woods is a five-time winner of the event, which benefits his TGR Foundation, but all five of his victories came when it was hosted at Sherwood Country Club outside Los Angeles. 

Woods has said countless times that he would never use a cart in competition, and there is no indication he'll do so at the Hero. It's against his dig-it-out-of-the-dirt nature, and if he needs a cart to play four straight rounds of tournament golf, in his mind he can't play tournament golf. He's been that cut-and-dry about it. We'll see if he wavers on that stance. 

It's also worth noting that this year's PNC Championship is the week after The Match, on Dec. 17-18. And given Charlie's continued commitment to golf—surely you've seen the videos, which show him looking completely different than he did a year ago—you have to think he's pushing his old man to play. 

There's a good chance we see quite a bit of one Mr. Eldrick Tiger Woods on our telvision screens in the month of December. There are worse things.