Tiger Woods PGA Championship absence explained with big stars set to miss out

Tiger Woods fans have been left disappointed after the 15-time Major winner was forced to withdraw from this week’s USA PGA Championship. But he is not the only household name who will be missing from the leaderboard when the second Major of the season gets underway on Thursday. Woods has only appeared in three events all season and was forced to withdraw from last month’s US Masters at Augusta National with an ankle injury.

The 47-year-old has won the US PGA Championship on four previous occasions but will be denied the chance to attempt a fifth after he underwent surgery to address post-traumatic arthritis.

The specialist surgery could keep him out of action for as long as six months, with a Royal Liverpool Open appearance now also in serious doubt. But if the absence of Woods is a blow to golf fans and the event organisers, the omission of several other star names is an even bigger disappointment.

Crowd favourite Sergio Garcia will be missing from the field for only the second time in 24 years. Remarkably, the Spaniard played in 84 straight Majors from 1999-2020 only missing out on the US Masters at the end of his run due to a positive COVID-19 test.

But having ditched the PGA Tour for the breakaway LIV Golf Tour, he has tumbled down to 189th in the DP World Rankings and will not appear at Oak Hill this week.

Garcia resigned from the PGA Tour last June. Fellow LIV Golf rebels Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter followed suit and will also be missing from the line-up this week.

Another big name from the LIV Golf tour who will be nowhere to be seen at the US PGA Championship is Henrik Stenson. The 2016 Open champion will be one of only three Major winners from the past 10 years – alongside Garcia and Bubba Watson – who will not be competing this week.

With the breakaway tour not currently eligible for DP world ranking points, the Swede has dropped to 196th in the world rankings and recently also resigned his membership from the DP world tour.

Louis Oosthuizen has suffered a similar fate, with the South African LIV Golf star plummeting to 163 in the world rankings. The 2010 Open champion has previously finished runner-up in all four majors but will be sitting this one out.

Last year’s runner-up Will Zalitoris is one of the rising stars of the game, but he will not play again all season after succumbing to a back injury at April’s Masters.

Here’s a list of the big-name golfers who will not be at the US PGA Championship this week:

Tiger Woods

Sergio Garcia

Lee Westwood

Henrik Stenson

Bubba Watson

Ian Poulter

Louis Oosthuizen

Will Zalatoris

Marc Leishman

Kevin Na