Tiger Woods opts out but the best of the rest are coming to The Players Championship
Tiger Woods let the 5 p.m. Friday deadline pass without committing to next week’s Players Championship.
Almost everyone else on the PGA Tour will be at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.
Led by No. 1 Jon Rahm, 19 of the top-20 players on the world golf rankings and 49 of the top-50 on the FexEx Cup standings committed to The Players before the Friday deadline.
Rahm has won three of six starts this season, prior to the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and finished among the top-10 in all six. Since winning in Mexico last year, he has 10 top-10s in 15 starts and has the current longest streak of made cuts on the PGA Tour with 24.
Rahm has made the cut in all five Players he's entered with a tie for 12th in 2019 and a tie for ninth in 2021.
Also in the mix will be past Players champions Rory Mclroy (No. 3 in the world) and Justin Thomas (No. 9) and top-10 players Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Will Zalatoris, Max Homa and Collin Morikawa.
The Players Championship
March 9-12, Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass
Purse, $25 million; first place, $4.5 million
Tickets and parking, visit theplayers.com
Military Appreciation Day and Riley Green concert, March 7, 4:30 p.m., 17th hole
Past major champions Jordan Spieth, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry, Keegan Bradley, Hideki Matusuyama and Justin Rose will be prowling the Stadium Course, along with past Players champions Webb Simpson, Si Woo Kim, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler and Matt Kuchar.
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The glaring absence from the field will be last year's champion, Cameron Smith. He and more than 20 other players are under indefinite PGA Tour suspension and ineligible for Tour events after they jumped to the LIV Golf League last year.
Other players who would have been eligible for The Players had they not joined LIV Golf are past Players champions Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia, and Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Joaquin Niemann, Abraham Ancer, Talor Gooch, Mito Pereira, Thomas Pieters and Harold Varner III.
While Woods has emphasized since his return last year from a near-fatal car accident in 2021 that his primary goal would be to play in the four major championships, he left the door open after the Genesis Invitational in Feburary that he might "sprinkle in" a few other events.
Woods last competed in The Players in 2019, tying for 30th, 10 shots behind winner Rory McIlroy. He had already opted out before the 2020 tournament because of back issues, and play was canceled anyway after one round because of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Less than a month after the 2019 Players, Woods won his fifth Masters and 15th major championship at Augusta National. He played three of the four majors last year (missing the U.S. Open) and his start at the Genesis Invitational, where he tied for 45th after a first-round 69, was his first start in a non-major championship since the 2020 ZOZO Championship.
The only player missing from among the top-50 on the FedEx Cup standings is Ben Taylor of England, who is getting married this weekend. The Players will have 43 of the top-50 on the world rankings and every PGA Tour winner this season, led by Rahm with three.
First Coast and Golden Isles players in the field include Billy Horschel, Keith Mitchell, Brian Harman, Russell Knox and Sam Ryder.
Players Championship commitments
Alexander, Tyson
An, Byeong Hun
Armour, Ryan
Baddeley, Aaron
Barnes, Erik
Bezuidenhout, Christiaan
Bradley, Keegan
Bramlett, Joseph
Brehm, Ryan
Buckley, Hayden
Burns, Sam
Cantlay, Patrick
Cink, Stewart
Clark, Wyndham
Cole, Eric
Conners, Corey
Dahmen, Joel
Davis, Cam
Day, Jason
Detry, Thomas
Duncan, Tyler
Endycott, Harrison
English, Harris
Finau, Tony
Fitzpatrick, Matt
Fleetwood, Tommy
Fowler, Rickie
Fox, Ryan
Frittelli, Dylan
Ghim, Doug
Glover, Lucas
Gordon, Will
Griffin, Ben
Griffin, Lanto
Grillo, Emiliano
Hadley, Chesson
Hadwin, Adam
Hahn, James
Hardy, Nick
Harman, Brian
Hatton, Tyrrell
Henley, Russell
Herbert, Lucas
Hickok, Kramer
Higgo, Garrick
Hodges, Lee
Hoge, Tom
Homa, Max
Horschel, Billy
Hossler, Beau
Hovland, Viktor
Hubbard, Mark
Hughes, Mackenzie
Im, Sungjae
Jaeger, Stephan
Kelly, Jerry
Kim, S.H.
Kim, Si Woo
Kim, Tom
Kirk, Chris
Kisner, Kevin
Kitayama, Kurt
Kizzire, Patton
Knox, Russell
Kraft, Kelly
Kuchar, Matt
Laird, Martin
Lashley, Nate
Lee, K.H.
Lee, Min Woo
Lingmerth, David
Lipsky, David
List, Luke
Long, Adam
Lower, Justin
Lowry, Shane
Malnati, Peter
Martin, Ben
Matsuyama, Hideki
McCarthy, Denny
McGreevy, Max
McIlroy, Rory
McNealy, Maverick
Merritt, Troy
Mitchell, Keith
Molinari, Francesco
Montgomery, Taylor
Moore, Taylor
Morikawa, Collin
Mullinax, Trey
NeSmith, Matthew
Noren, Alex
Novak, Andrew
Palmer, Ryan
Pendrith, Taylor
Piercy, Scott
Poston, J.T.
Power, Seamus
Putnam, Andrew
Rahm, Jon
Rai, Aaron
Ramey, Chad
Reavie, Chez
Redman, Doc
Riley, Davis
Rodgers, Patrick
Rose, Justin
Ryder, Sam
Schauffele, Xander
Scheffler, Scottie
Schenk, Adam
Schwab, Matthias
Scott, Adam
Shelton, Robby
Sigg, Greyson
Simpson, Webb
Smalley, Alex
Smotherman, Austin
Spaun, J.J.
Spieth, Jordan
Stallings, Scott
Straka, Sepp
Streb, Robert
Streelman, Kevin
Suh, Justin
Svensson, Adam
Tarren, Callum
Taylor, Nick
Theegala, Sahith
Thomas, Justin
Thompson, Davis
Thompson, Michael
Todd, Brendon
Tway, Kevin
Vegas, Jhonattan
Wallace, Matt
Watney, Nick
Willett, Danny
Wise, Aaron
Woodland, Gary
Wu, Brandon
Wu, Dylan
Young, Cameron
Zalatoris, Will
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Tiger Woods won't play The Players Championship: Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy will
