Tiger Woods’ long-awaited return to competitive golf on Tuesday evening was a quick one. Woods and his Jupiter Links teams got dusted by Los Angeles GC to lose the 2026 TGL Finals. It only took L.A. 10 holes to finish Jupiter off 9-2.
While Woods put up a couple of highlights with the few swings he hit in his return, it was his worst moment — a short missed putt to lose a crucial hole — that may have turned the match.
Tiger Woods starts return with 2 bombs, 318-yard stinger
Tuesday night’s TGL action was Woods’ first appearance playing a competitive golf event in over a year, dating to a TGL match in early March 2025. His last time playing a real tournament was July 2024.
With that in mind, the biggest positive from Tiger’s brief foray back into competitive golf was that his swing looked good, albeit in a small sample.
After hitting a nice lag putt to set up a gimme birdie at the 1st hole, Tiger took his first full swing at the par-5 2nd hole, known as “Caverns.”
After Tom Kim hit the tee shot for Jupiter, Tiger laced a 3-wood 272 yards to the right edge of the green, only 24 feet from the hole.
The ESPN TV both seemed impressed with the shot, “How about that? That looked really, really good,” one analyst remarked.
Jupiter would win the hole to take an early 1-0 lead in the match. After a sand wedge and a few more putts, Woods finally hit another full shot at the 6th hole, and it was his best of the night.
At the signature “Stinger” hole, Woods hit one of his trademark stinger shots, piping a driver under the overhanging rock and 318 yards down the fairway.
However, Tiger’s exemplary stinger was ultimately wasted. L.A., represented by Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose and Sahith Theegala, threw down the Hammer on the hole, then won it with a birdie make from Theegala.
Suddenly, the match was tied 2-2.
From there on out, things only got worse for Woods and Jupiter Links.
At the very next hole, the 250-yard par-3 “Cenote,” Homa hit his drive to 18 feet, while Rose missed the green for L.A.
Theegala hit a clutch chip to four feet, setting up an easy par putt for Fleetwood that gave L.A. a 3 for the hole.
Kim hit next for Jupiter, and he didn’t hit a great one. Facing an 18-footer, he left Tiger with over three feet for par to tie the hole.
With the ESPN cameras zoomed in close, Woods set up to the ball, took his stroke, then watched as his ball caught the edge of the cup and lipped out.
The ugly miss drew a minor club slam from the 15-time major champion, as he brought his putter down onto his offending ball. But with a turf green, no harm was done to the putting surface.
L.A. won the hole to take a 3-2 lead and never looked back. Three holes later, L.A. had officially wrapped their championship title with a 9-2 win.
Immediately after the match, Woods did not hide his frustration with the result or with himself.
“We got our ass kicked at the end… We didn’t respond, and I missed a short one at the beginning to kind of get it started, give them momentum, and never got it back,” Woods said Tuesday night.
Later, during Jupiter’s post-match press conference, Woods took a shot at himself over his short missed putt when asked if Jupiter’s missing teammate, Akshay Bhatia, could have helped the team Tuesday night.
“He probably would have made that two-footer that I missed,” Woods joked.
He continued: “We had to hold down the fort, and unfortunately we didn’t hold down the fort.”
And with that, Woods’ brief “return” was over. We don’t know when we will see him compete next. He confirmed again on Tuesday that he was trying his best to get his body and game ready for the Masters. But he also did not commit to playing. His decision needs to come soon, though. The 2026 Masters starts in two weeks.
