Contemplating One Way Tiger Woods Could Play in This Year's Ryder Cup

Tiger Woods will surely be involved in Rome somehow, as a confidant or assistant to U.S. captain Zach Johnson. Playing sounds like a longshot, but Bob Harig has an idea.

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Tiger Woods being involved in the Ryder Cup in some form this year should not be a surprise. He’s been a behind-the-scenes voice going back to 2016, when he was a vice captain for Davis Love III. He was an assistant at the 2017 Presidents Cup, played (poorly) in the 2018 Ryder Cup, captained the U.S. Presidents Cup team in 2019 (going 3-0 as a player) and was again behind the scenes at the 2021 Ryder Cup and 2022 Presidents Cup.

So some role seems obvious. Maybe as an assistant. Certainly as a trusted confidant.

But as a player?

The U.S. captain for the matches later this year in Rome took on the question this week at the Sony Open and did not brush it off.

Tiger Woods, pictured giving Zach Johnson a fist bump at the 2022 Masters, will surely be involved in this year's Ryder Cup in some way ... but how about as a player?

Danielle Parhizkaran/USA TODAY NETWORK

"I would only contemplate having him on the team if he was putting up some numbers and some scores, No. 1, showing some sign of being competitive," Johnson said.

"And then No. 2, that discussion would be had with the other guys that are part of that team, and specifically him. If there is anything I trust in Tiger Woods, (it) is that he’s extremely invested in this team and the future Cups. Extremely invested. I can’t speak that enough."

There’s no doubt about Johnson’s latter comments. Woods will undoubtedly be a U.S. Ryder Cup captain, and it would be as soon as 2025 at Bethpage or perhaps 2027 in Ireland.

It is Johnson's "No. 1" that is seemingly remote at this point.

Woods played just nine competitive rounds in 2022. He missed a scheduled start at the Hero World Challenge due to plantar fasciitis, a setback from his already tenuous lower right leg situation. In trying to ramp up for the Bahamas tournament, Woods said he overdid it while walking and preparing. Now he's having to recover from that while seeing if he can play again, with the next target the Genesis Invitational—only four weeks away.

"I am confident that he would say, 'yeah, I can play' or 'no, I can't,'" Johnson said, noting that Woods would "do anything and everything for the betterment of the team."

There are obviously numerous obstacles to any playing scenario for Woods, the first being his ability. There’s also the reality that the U.S. Ryder Cup team has moved on from the "old guard" of veterans, as evidenced by rousing success at the last Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. Do you really need Woods when you have the likes of Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler, Will Zalatoris, Tony Finau—all top 15 players in the world? Not to mention Max Homa and Cameron Young and Sam Burns or anyone else who might emerge over the coming months?

Then there is Woods’ record. In his past two Ryder Cups—2012 and 2018—he is 0-7-1.

But if you want to make a case for it happening, with everything else going to the degree that Johnson wants it as it pertains to Woods's health, here is perhaps the only scenario that works:

You use Woods in singles only.

Now there are numerous reasons to suggest that even that is foolish. But the U.S. team has plenty of depth for the team matches, and it doesn’t make sense to break any of that up to throw Woods in the mix. Thomas-Spieth and Schauffele-Cantlay already make up two strong teams. Finau, Morikawa, Scheffler, Zalatoris, Burns, Homa … there are numerous possibilities.

But Woods in singles has some intrigue. He’s such a popular figure in the game that his playing helps negate the home-crowd advantage in Italy. His presence, either way, would be an inspiration for the U.S. team. And 18 holes of match play, if everything else has gone right, is something Woods could handle and is the only form of the Ryder Cup where he has generally excelled. (He is 4-2-2.)

The idea is, admittedly, fanciful. But September is a long way off, and there will be plenty of evidence prior to then to support any kind of far-flung idea that Woods might actually compete in the Ryder Cup.