Tiger Woods is set to play in his 23rd PGA Championship in two weeks, thanks to an exemption as a former champion of the event. The tournament will also be the third official start of his career at Valhalla Golf Club.
Woods is scheduled to scout Valhalla Golf Club this Monday, May 6. The X (formerly Twitter) account "TWLegion" broke the news by posting the following:
"Tiger will scout Valhalla Golf Club tomorrow, site of the PGA Championship, according to a source familiar."
Tiger Woods has said several times that he plans to maintain a monthly tournament schedule in the future, due to his health problems. This includes playing in all four majors of the season, which run one each month between April and July.
Tiger Woods has already played The Masters Tournament in April, while he will play the PGA Championship in May. In June he will be in the US Open field, for which he received a special invitation, and will close the majors season in July when he plays The Open Championship at Royal Troon.
A look at Tiger Woods' performance at Valhalla Golf Club and more
Tiger Woods has played at Valhalla Golf Club twice in an official event. Coincidentally, on both occasions, it was playing in the PGA Championship.
The first occasion was in 2000. Woods won the event with a score of 18 under 270, defeating Bob May in a playoff. Thus, Woods successfully defended his title, as he had won it in 1999. It was also the third major title of his career.
14 years later, Woods returned to Valhalla again to play the PGA Championship. The situation could not have been more different, as Woods could only manage two rounds of 74 and missed the cut.
The Valhalla Golf Club course was designed by Jack Nicklaus and opened in 1986. In addition to the two editions of the PGA Championship mentioned above, another edition of the same event (1996, won by Mark Brooks), as well as the 2008 Ryder Cup (won by the American team), was played there. Woods did not play in either of these two events.
The course has 7,458 yards and is par 72. Its rating is 76.4 and its slope is 148. The course record is held by Jose María Olazabal since 2000 (63).
Woods has participated in 22 editions of the PGA Championship with 18 cuts made. His results in the event include four victories, three second places, and two other Top 10s.
As a curious fact, his two victories in the PGA Championship have been in consecutive editions. He won the 1999 and 2000 events, and then the 2006 and 2007 events. Only Woods and Brooks Koepka have been able to successfully defend the PGA Championship title (Koepka did it by winning in 2018 and 2019).