PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Tiger Woods never said anything about not playing in next week’s Valspar Championship.
There was no tweet, no post on his website, no verbal commitment when asked about his schedule earlier this week. He isn’t required to make any announcement, so fans had to wait until the field was finalized 30 minutes after the conclusion of Friday’s second round of The Players Championship to see Woods was not playing.
But he is playing the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club in two weeks. Woods hasn’t made an official announcement of his plans, but he did reveal the next course of action on his schedule after Saturday’s third round at TPC Sawgrass.
“Well, I’m guaranteed to play three rounds in a couple weeks and so that’s basically like a tournament and we’ll see from there,” Woods said after shooting even-par 72 to remain far back of the leaders in the PGA Tour’s flagship event.
At the Match Play, the 64 players are split into 16 four-player groups. Each player in the group plays the three other players in the preliminary rounds Wednesday through Friday. Sixteen advance to play on Saturday.
Joe LaCava, Woods’ caddie, added that he likely will be going to Austin, Texas, the Sunday ahead of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play week.
“I told you guys at the end of last year, I’m not going to play as much as I did last year. That was an awful lot,” said Woods, who made 18 PGA Tour starts and played in the Ryder Cup and the Hero World Challenge.
Woods will also play the Masters, which is two weeks after the Match Play.
