For the second consecutive year, one of golf’s all-time greats will miss all four of the sport’s major championships. Tiger Woods did not submit an entry into the 2026 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale by last week’s deadline, per Sports Illustrated. As he does not have an exemption for next month’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, the 15-time major winner will go without playing eight consecutive majors with his absence from the sport remaining indefinite.
Woods, 50, missed the 2025 major season due to injury and the 2026 season due to his second DUI arrest and an overseas rehabilitation stint.
He had been ramping up for a potential return at the 2026 Masters following a torn Achilles (suffered just before the 2025 Masters) and another back surgery; however, a rollover car crash in Jupiter, Florida, on March 27 resulted in a DUI arrest, and he subsequently entered a treatment program in Switzerland.
Since his 2021 car crash, Woods has competed in only eight majors and finished all four rounds twice — at the Masters in 2022 and 2024 — with four missed cuts and two withdrawals. His last major round was played at the 2024 Open Championship, where he missed the cut at Royal Troon.
Woods has permanent exemptions to play in the Masters and PGA Championship as a past champion; however, his Open Championship exemption as a former winner ends after he turns 60, and he is no longer exempt for the U.S. Open as the window for past winners is shorter.
Longtime rival Phil Mickelson has also missed the first two majors of 2026, and he will not attempt to qualify for the U.S. Open in June, despite that being the lone major trophy he has yet to win. Mickelson reportedly submitted his entry for the Open Championship, as he remains exempt as a past champion, but after withdrawing late from the Masters due to an undisclosed family matter, it’s not clear whether he will actually make the trip to Royal Birkdale in July.
While not two of golf’s most prominent figures of this century at recent majors has been strange, after years of questions about the sport’s ability to survive in a post-Tiger (and to a lesser degree, post-Phil) era, this current crop of stars led by Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler has proved the sport will indeed continue on and thrive even in the absence of some legendary figures.