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July 25, 2018 - 8:39 am EDT 6 years ago

No Guarantees Tiger Plays In Ryder Cup

Chris Chaney Chris Chaney

Tiger Woods’ resurgence over the last eight months has enthralled many in and around golf, but despite his move up the Official World Golf Rankings from No. 1,199 to No. 50 since the end of November — a stretch that has included eight top-25s in 12 events — there is no guarantee that we will see Woods teeing it up in two months at the 2018 Ryder Cup, according to U.S. Captain Jim Furyk. 


“I’m going to handle him the way I do everyone else,”‘ Furyk told the Associated Press’ Doug Ferguson. “I’ll ask my top eight guys. The way he’s playing, he might be one of them. I’ll ask the vice captains, collectively, and I think we’ll do the best we can to round out the team. We want the guys playing the best.

“We had a lot of guys in pretty good form. Flip over to Tiger, you look at him because he’s Tiger, and he’s earned a lot of attention. … I loved seeing him play well. I loved seeing him jump to 20th (in the Ryder Cup standings). It’s fun to watch, but we’ll handle him like everyone else.”

Of course, Woods will be in Paris whether he is playing or not; he was appointed to be a vice-captain by Furyk back in February. When asked about which role he would rather play ahead of the Genesis Open earlier this year, he answered in typical Tiger fashion.

“Why can’t I have both? I like both,” he said, before adding that it’s not his decision. “That’s up to our captain, what Jim says.”

Woods will tee it up two more times before the top-8 automatic qualifiers are selected, the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship — two big-money, big-point opportunities.