Tiger Woods is good to go. The Players Championship is days away. Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler are all cruising into the biggest event of the year so far. All is well in the golf world (until the first rules blunder at TPC Sawgrass).
The groups for the first two days are about what you would think for an event that includes 50 of the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings. Woods gets 2018 Players winner Webb Simpson and 2018 Masters champ Patrick Reed in his group on Thursday and Friday. It's a (nice) reprieve from last year's pairing with Phil Mickelson in the first two rounds.
That's not the only monster group either. Rory McIlroy and Matt Kuchar will play with Mickelson in Rounds 1 and 2. Justin Rose and Justin Thomas get Xander Schauffele as a third. Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia are together. And Rickie Fowler, Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth round out the biggest boy groups.
Thursday and Friday will be jam-packed with all sorts of coverage, too, much of it revolving around Woods and his first tournament since finishing T10 at the WGC-Mexico Championship at the end of February. Big Cat skipped the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week with a strained neck but says he's ready to roll at TPC Sawgrass where he finished T11 in 2018.
