Woods must stay in top 50 to play his own Chevron World Challenge event

The next tournament in America for Tiger Woods will be in California. The question now is whether he can play another tournament in California at the end of the year.

Woods is host of the Chevron World Challenge on Dec. 1-4 in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Two years ago, it began awarding world ranking points, but it could only award sponsor exemptions to players in the top 50 in the world.

That even applies to the host.

Woods, who started the season at No. 2 in the world, dropped to No. 38 this week.

The cutoff to be in the top 50 is Sept. 20, after the PGA Tour's BMW Championship. Chevron Tournament Director Greg McLaughlin is confident Woods will be in the top 50, although it still depends on which PGA Tour players do well during the next two playoff events, and on certain Europeans faring well in Switzerland this week.

Asked if the tournament would consider relinquishing world ranking points for a year if Woods needed a spot, McLaughlin said, “We haven’t contemplated anything relative to that at all.”

“We’re confident he’s going to be in the top 50 and will be eligible to play,” McLaughlin said.

Then came a dose of sarcasm to show he was not worried about Woods making it to his own tournament.

“He most likely would need an exemption,” McLaughlin said. “We have two, and we would happily extend one to him.”