Woods announces Nov. 30 return

Tiger Woods says he’ll play in Bahamas

For the second consecutive year, Tiger Woods will launch another comeback at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, a tournament that benefits his foundation.

The 14-time major champion and winner of 79 PGA Tour titles announced Monday that he would play competitive golf for the first time in nine months when 18 of the game’s top players gather at Albany Golf Club in the Bahamas on Nov. 30-Dec. 3.

“I am excited to return to competitive golf at the Hero World Challenge,” Woods said in a statement. “Albany is the perfect setting, and it will be great to join this outstanding field.”

Woods, 41, who hasn’t won since the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational in 2013 and has made just three starts in 26 months, had fusion surgery on his lower back April 19, the fourth procedure on his back since May 2014.

As recently as five weeks ago at The Presidents Cup, where he served as an assistant captain, Woods said he didn’t know if he’d ever play competitively again — “I don’t know what my future holds,” he said.

In recent weeks, however, Woods posted short videos on Twitter of his return to practice: there was a chip shot, a smooth short iron, a slow motion video of him hitting a driver, another slo-mo video of hitting a stinger with a long iron.

Ten days ago his doctor cleared him to resume full golf activities. Since then he has played rounds of golf at Medalist near his home in Jupiter, Fla., and at Los Angeles Country Club.

“He’s just been progressing,” Mark Steinberg, Woods’ agent, told USA TODAY Sports on Monday. “He’s excited. He feels like he’s ready to play. I’m not sure if he decided today to play. He called a couple of us and said, ‘I’m ready to go. I want to get back, and I’m ready to play.’

“He said he’s healthy and he’s ready to go.”

Woods returned to competitive golf in last year’s Hero World Challenge, where he played for the first time in nearly 16 months. He finished 15th out of the 17 players who completed the tournament but made 24 birdies, tying for the most of any player.

But he missed the cut in the Farmers Insurance Open nearly two months later and then withdrew after a birdieless opening round of 77 in the Dubai Desert Classic the following week. Woods, who pleaded guilty to reckless driving last week, had surgery 10 weeks later that fused two vertebrae in his lower back.

“The surgery was such an unknown that you can’t really set an expectation level on that,” Steinberg said. “At least to us he hasn’t disclosed what his level of expectation was after the surgery and what it is now.

“But each day he keeps progressing. He wouldn’t commit today to playing in the Hero World Challenge if he didn’t feel like he was ready.”