Is Tiger Woods playing in the 2024 ZOZO Championship? Eligibility and availability explored

Tiger Woods will not be playing at the 2024 ZOZO Championship. The fifth tournament of the PGA Tour's eight-event fall schedule will be played at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Chiba, Japan from Thursday, October 24 to Sunday, October 27

78 players are listed for the ZOZO Championship. Several top-50 players including Xander Schauffele, Sahith Theegala, Collin Morikawa, Sungjae Im, Max Homa, and Justin Thomas who have not played in the FedExCup Fall schedule will tee off at the tournament.

However, Woods, the winner of the inaugural edition of the ZOZO Championship in 2019, is not listed in the field for the tournament. Big names like Scottie Scheffler, Ludvig Aberg, Wyndham Clark, and Tommy Fleetwood are also not in the field.

Tiger Woods is eligible for any tournament as he has a lifetime PGA Tour card. Players with over 20 wins on the Tour receive lifetime membership. Furthermore, in June, he also received an exemption from the signature events on the PGA Tour due to "exceptional lifetime achievement."

Woods' last tournament was The Open Championship 2024 where he missed the cut. He was asked in the mixed zone about his schedule for the rest of the season.

"I'm not going to play until the 2024 Hero World Challenge," Tiger Woods said. "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 challenge, so looking forward to it."

Therefore, Woods' next appearance in a professional golf tournament will likely be the 2024 Hero World Challenge. It will be held from December 5 to 8 at Albany Golf Course in the Bahamas.

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Hideki Matsuyama was happy to replicate Tiger Woods' ZOZO Championship win in 2021

Local hero Hideki Matsuyama is gearing up to compete at the 2024 ZOZO Championship. The Japanese player will look for his second win at the tournament.

Matsuyama won the tournament in 2021 by five strokes over Brendan Steele and Cameron Tringale. He had said (via talkSport):

"I would rate my performance as two or three out of ten. From the results perspective, it went about to eight, but I think it's because all the energy that I was getting from the fans and I was very surprised how much energy I was feeding off of them."

Matsuyama was a runner-up in the inaugural ZOZO Championship in 2019. He lost to Tiger Woods by three strokes, whose victory came after he won the 2019 Masters. Matsuyama's 2021 ZOZO Championship victory came after his win at the 2021 Masters. Talking about it, Matsuyama had said:

"It was one of my biggest goals to win in front of the Japanese fans here in this country as well. I’m so happy that I was able to accomplish that. Also, in 2019, Tiger Woods won the Masters and went on to win the Zozo Championship, so I'm glad that I was able to emulate that as well."

Matsuyama is one of the favorites to win the 2024 tournament. As per BetMGM, he has odds of +850. The other people with the best odds this year, as per BetMGM, are as follows:

• Xander Schauffele (+400)
• Collin Morikawa (+700)
• Hideki Matsuyama (+850)
• Sungjae Im (+1400)
• Sahith Theegala (+1800)
• Justin Thomas (+1800)
• Beau Hossler (+2800)
• Eric Cole (+4000)
• Kurt Kitayama (+2800)
• Min Woo Lee (+3300)
• Will Zalatoris (+3300)
• Si Woo Kim (+3500)