Tiger Woods won’t have a chance to defend his title at next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake.
Woods provided a glimmer of hope with Saturday’s 5-under 67, but he fell well outside the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings after a final-round 72 Sunday at the BMW Championship.
So that’s it for Woods’ second full season back on Tour since spinal fusion, one which began in unfathomable fashion at Augusta National and came to an end on a down note in the Chicago suburbs.
Woods made just 12 start this season and didn’t get into contention outside of the Masters victory in April, his 15th major title and first since the 2008 U.S. Open.
With just two starts to play his way into the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings, Woods was behind the eight ball after withdrawing from the Northern Trust. He looked fine physically all week at Medinah Country Club but wasn’t sharp enough to play his way into contention on a soft course giving up seriously low numbers across the board.
Woods finished the week 7 under overall and recorded his first bogey-free round of the season Saturday. He made back-to-back birdies at four and five Sunday to get to 9 under and provide a glimmer of hope early in the day. But he stalled out from there and just wasn’t able to give himself many birdie looks.
Now we won’t see Woods again until October, when he’ll almost certainly begin his 2019-20 season at the inaugural ZOZO Championship in Japan. He’s also slated to play an exhibition skins event that week with Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and Hideki Matsuyama.
