Defending Champ Scottie Scheffler Among Those In Hero World Challenge; Tiger Woods Not Yet Among Them

With the PGA Tour’s new fall format focusing on players trying to play their way into the first set of Signature Events for 2025 and those below left fighting to make the top 125, we haven’t seen the top golfers on the PGA Tour since last month’s Presidents Cup.

That’s set to change in December, when Tiger Woods’ Hero World Challenge exhibition event pits 20 of the world’s top PGA Tour pros in the Bahamas.

An initial field announcement took care of 17 of those spots, and it includes defending champion Scottie Scheffler and four others in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking (Ludvig Aberg, Wyndham Clark, Hideki Matsuyama, and Patrick Cantlay).

Among those not yet committing is the host himself – Tiger Woods.

The 2024 Hero World Challenge initial field is here.

Returning to Albany, Bahamas, December 5-8, this year’s field features five of the top 10 players in the world, including defending champion, World No. 1-ranked Scottie Scheffler and 2016 champion Hideki Matsuyama.

— TGR Live (@TGRLiveEvents) October 22, 2024

Woods said at the beginning of the year that he hoped to play around once a month, and he did play in five tournaments from February to July. But he had a minor back procedure done in September and hasn’t commented on his play since.

This week marks five years since Woods’ last PGA Tour win: the 2019 ZOZO Championship in Japan. Since that time, Woods has been dealing with several health issues stemming from a February 2021 car crash.

When healthy, Woods has played in the Hero and the PNC Championship later in December, which is the family doubles tournament he’s competed in with his son, Charlie.

Woods said in July:

“I’m not going to play until then. I’m going to just keep getting physically better and keep working on it. Hopefully just come back for our – what is it, our fifth major, the Father/Son, so looking forward to it.”

Along with Aberg, five others will compete in Hero for the first time. They are Sahith Theegala, Russell Henley, Robert MacIntyre, Aaron Rai, and Matthieu Pavon.

Cover Image via Albany Bahamas