Tiger Woods could return to a golf course as soon as Monday, marking his first golf appearance since his March DUI arrest that changed his season. The occasion will be his foundation’s annual NEXUS Cup charity event at Liberty National in New Jersey, running Monday and Tuesday.
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The update came from golf insider TWLEGION in a post on X: “The next Tiger Woods appearance could come on Monday when Woods’ foundation is scheduled to kick off its annual NEXUS Cup Charity event from Liberty National GC in New York. Tiger typically gives a clinic and we could very well see him hitting balls.”
Per the Nexus Cup’s own site, it’s set for September 14–15 at Liberty National, an invite-only amateur event that raises money for the TGR Foundation, with the Manhattan skyline as a backdrop. Woods usually works the crowd at these things, mingling with the teams — he even brought Jimmy Fallon out for a cameo in 2019. It will not be surprising if he picks up a club and hits a few this time too.
To understand why even a charity clinic is important right now, it helps to look back at what happened in March. On March 27, Woods was arrested on Jupiter Island, Florida, after his SUV hit a truck trailer he was trying to pass and tipped onto its side; no one was hurt. According to the arrest report, Woods said he’d been looking at his phone and changing the radio; an officer described him as “sweating profusely” and “lethargic and slow.” He tested negative for alcohol but refused a urine test, and police found two hydrocodone pills in his pocket.
It was his second DUI-related arrest. In 2018, Woods was found asleep behind the wheel of a parked car and later pleaded guilty to reckless driving.
Woods initially pleaded not guilty in the latest case. He then stepped away from competitive golf and sought treatment, reportedly spending time at a facility in Switzerland. He missed the Masters, and his last competitive PGA Tour round remains the 2024 Open Championship.
More than five months later, on September 2, Woods returned to a Martin County courtroom and pleaded no contest to a reduced reckless-driving charge. He also accepted a lesser careless-driving citation instead of the original refusal charge. The deal kept him out of jail, but his driver’s license was suspended for five years, and he was fined $1,500. Judge Darren Steele gave Woods a strict warning: “There are no exceptions. If you were to drive for any reason at all, you would go immediately back to jail.”
Tiger Woods is one of the most important players in golf history and one of the biggest names in American sports. With 15 majors—five Masters, three U.S. Opens, three Opens, four PGAs—Woods trails only Nicklaus’ 18. He turned professional in 1996 and quickly changed the sport, becoming the youngest player to win the Masters in 1997 at just 21. He also spent a record 683 weeks as the World No. 1, far more than Greg Norman’s 331 weeks.
It hasn’t been an easy road, either. There was the personal scandal in 2009, then a car crash in 2021 that nearly cost him his leg, plus a string of back surgeries along the way. Somehow he kept coming back, and those comebacks became some of the biggest stories in the sport.
Woods’ first public appearance after the plea deal wasn’t on a golf course at all. That Saturday, he showed up at Stanford Stadium to watch the Cardinal get blown out by Miami 45-6, looking relaxed and cracking jokes with the people around him. That same weekend, his son Charlie was playing in the Junior Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, where he tied for eighth after closing with three straight birdies on 9 through 11, a big jump from his 31st-place finish there last year. Charlie’s got one more high school season left before he heads to Florida State in 2027.
That is why Monday’s NEXUS Cup could be important. It wouldn’t be Woods’ first time in public since the case ended, but it could be his first time back on a golf course. Either way, many will be watching closely to see how the 50-year-old Woods looks. He has not played a competitive event since 2024.