Tiger Woods has chosen not play in the PGA Tour’s flagship event, The Players Championship. The 15-time major champion’s name was absent from the commitment list when the Friday deadline passed ahead of next week’s event at TPC Sawgrass.

The 2025 playing of The Players marked the last year of Woods’ automatic eligibility stemming from his victory at the 2019 Masters. Woods is now expected to enter next month’s Masters without a competitive tournament under his belt this calendar year.

Tiger had originally committed to play in the 2025 Genesis Invitational — the tournament he hosts annually — at Torrey Pines but ultimately withdrew three days later citing he was not ready to return to golf following the passing of his mother, Kultida.

Woods did join the CBS Sports broadcast that Sunday before presenting tournament winner Ludvig Åberg with the Genesis Invitational trophy following his rousing victory.

While Woods has not competed on the PGA Tour since the final major championship of last season, he has been in the spotlight thanks to his simulator golf league, TGL. The 49-year-old’s Jupiter Links Golf Club was eliminated from playoff contention earlier this week. Tiger did not miss any of his planned TGL starts.

“This is the third time I’ve touched a club since my mom passed,” Woods said at his last TGL outing. “My heart’s not really into practicing right now. … Once I start probably feeling a bit better and getting into it, I’ll look into the [PGA Tour] schedule.”

While not teeing it up for the PGA Tour, Woods has nevertheless been hard at work for the organization outside the ropes. The 82-time event winner recently traveled to the White House to participate in a four-hour working session between PGA Tour leadership and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund as the parties continue to seek a deal in hopes of unifying the game.

If Woods had entered the field at TPC Sawgrass, it would have represented his first competitive non-major or non-Genesis Invitational outing since the 2020 Zozo Championship where he served as the defending champion. Since then, Woods has played in 11 PGA Tour events missing four cuts, withdrawing three times and failing to finish inside the top 30 in any of them.

In order for Woods to qualify for a future edition of The Players, he will either need to win a PGA Tour event, enter the top 50 of the Official World Golf Rankings or place among the top 70 players in the 2025 FedEx Cup.