ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Georgia – Tiger Woods will be at the Ryder Cup next year. Still to be determined is whether he plays.
US captain Davis Love III said Wednesday that Woods, Jim Furyk and Steve Stricker will be vice captains for the 2016 matches at Hazeltine in Minnesota. It was part of an agreement with Europe to expand to a maximum of five vice captains.
Woods, however, wants to do both.
“Tiger has said, ‘I want to make the team and also be a (vice) captain,’” Love said. “Tiger wants to be a playing assistant. That’s his goal.”
It seems like an audacious one given the state of the 14-time major champion. Woods has played only 20 tournaments in the last two years because of a pair of back surgeries and a recent follow-up procedure on his back. He has said it would be a long, tedious recovery and did not know when he could return to competition.
Woods has only one top 10 in the last two years.
Furyk and Stricker were vice captains in the Presidents Cup last month in South Korea. Stricker has been playing a reduced schedule the last few years and has slipped outside the top 200 in the world ranking. Furyk is No. 9 in the world and is coming off a solid season with his 17th career win and $3.7 million.
The five vice captains would allow one of them to be with each match during the team sessions, with another that Love described as a “floater.” Last year at Gleneagles, European captain Paul McGinley had one of his assistants with the players who sat out some of the team sessions.
Love already announced former Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman as one of his assistants.
“These three guys joining Tom Lehman will send a message to our team that we are really serious about this Ryder Cup, so that the members know that we’re going to do whatever it takes to put them in the best position to win in 2016,” Love said.
Europe has won six out of the last seven times.
Among the strategies that came out of a Ryder Cup Task Force was to have vice captains who were either past captains for would be considered future captain. Love approached Woods, Furyk, Stricker and Phil Mickelson about being vice captains.