Tiger Woods to skip Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow
For this year, Charlotte will miss out on the Tiger Woods experience.
Woods did not commit to play next weekend’s Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow before the 5 p.m. deadline Friday, meaning he will miss the tournament in Charlotte. Woods has not played a PGA Tour event since he won his 15th major golf tournament at the Masters two weeks ago.
Players have until 5 p.m. the preceding Friday before a tournament to commit, but they can withdraw any time thereafter.
“Unfortunately Tiger Woods, is not gonna come this year,” tournament director Gary Sobba said on WFNZ, “but we still have a loaded and deep field from the likes of Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose, and Rory McIlroy.”
Quail Hollow was expected to be Woods’ tuneup opportunity before the PGA Championship in the middle of May. Woods historically has not played the weekend before a major tournament, and because he is expected to compete for another major at Bethpage Black in New York May 16-19, it would have made Charlotte the ideal place to ease back into competition.
That idea was complemented by the fact that Woods clearly enjoyed his time in Charlotte last year. After not having played the Wells Fargo Championship since 2012, Woods returned in 2018 and finished tied for 55th at 2-over.
But that didn’t stop an endless stream of fans following Woods everywhere he went last year. Woods then went out of his way to tweet about how much he appreciated the support he saw in Charlotte.
Even without Woods, the field will again be highly-decorated. Ten of the top 25 players in the world had already committed to play at Quail Hollow before Friday, including Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, and last year’s Wells Fargo champion, Jason Day.
The Wells Fargo Championship begins Thursday, May 2, and runs through Sunday, May 5. Tickets are still available online for the weekend, as well as for the pre-tournament events.
This story was originally published April 26, 2019 at 4:40 PM.
