Clouds of uncertainty hanging over Tiger Woods participation in Chevron Challenge
Tiger Woods has been enjoying some time off the course but he better get back into some shape as the focus is going to shift very soon. As the FedEx Cup playoffs continue at the BMW Championship, the former world no. 1 must be fixated on what impact the
playoff result would have on his standings in Official Golf World Ranking (OWGR).
Woods is currently placed at 46th in the OWGR rankings but needs to remain in the Top 50 to be considered for the Chevron World Challenge in December.
The 14-major winner would not be able to qualify for the event if normal circumstances are taken into consideration to field the 18 players required. However, the event has two sponsor exemptions to offer to players who are inside the Top 50 mark as of September
19th.
The head of Woods Foundation and the tournament director Greg McLaughlin would be under some pressure to give his boss a pass into the event if there is a spot available.
McLaughlin was asked if the tournament would consider bending the rules a bit or look into relinquishing the world ranking points for a year if Woods did not make the cut and needed a spot.
McLaughlin’s reply was, “We haven't contemplated anything relative to that at all. We're confident he's going to be in the top 50 and will be eligible to play.”
Then with a bit of sarcasm, he added, “He most likely would need an exemption. We have two, and we would happily extend one to him.”
The real question is whether any of the players sneak past Woods this week to force him out of the Top 50. The four players who are immediately under Tiger Woods currently are Bill Haas, Sergio Garcia, Jonathan Byrd and Geoff Ogilvy.
There are some other players very close to Woods and are performing fairly well for the past few months, one of them is Vijay Singh who has been quite impressive for the last month and is well placed at 55th.
Woods will still get somewhat of a break from the European Tour, as it is hosting the Vivendi Seve Trophy. It is a team competition where the Europe and British Isles teams go head to head, although the matches will not be awarding points to individual players.
So how will the results pan out remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure that Chevron Challenge will not be same without Tiger Woods and fans all over the world will be hoping that the golf gods favor him, something that hasn’t happened for a while.
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