Kisner Says He Lost His TGL Spot Because Tiger Woods Wants a Full Schedule

Tiger Woods wants to play a full TGL schedule, and that plan has already cost a teammate his place. Kevin Kisner said on Thursday’s Fore Play podcast that his Jupiter Links contract was not renewed in part because Woods intends to play the season himself, with Keith Mitchell signed in Kisner’s place. Kisner delivered the news about his own exit and, in doing so, gave the clearest account yet of what Woods plans to do next.

What exactly did Kisner say happened?

He said the team moved on, and Woods’s playing plans were part of the reason. “Well obviously, I’m not on the team anymore,” Kisner said, in the New York Post’s account of the podcast. “I had a two-year contract with Jupiter Links, signed in October 2023. Tiger wants to play and then they wanted to sign Keith Mitchell, which is totally fine with me.” GolfMagic’s independent report of the same podcast carries the same lines. Kisner added a practical reason of his own for accepting it: staying home in January and February instead of flying back and forth to Palm Beach every Monday, and a belief that viewers do not want a part-time podcaster and broadcaster playing in a league where, as he put it, they are playing for millions of dollars now. He said he played only twice this year.

How was he told, and when?

By a long text from the man closest to Woods. Kisner said Rob McNamara, Woods’s friend and confidant, texted him the previous week with the decisions, how the players were being moved around, and the line that matters here, that Tiger wanted to play a full schedule. Both the Post and GolfMagic carry that detail. Kisner said the conversation had started at the end of last season in March, when his exit was discussed, so Thursday’s podcast was a player explaining a settled decision rather than breaking news about his own feelings. He said he still expects to be involved with the team in some fashion, and that he may hold equity in it. This is a different kind of Kisner story from the one this desk covered when Kisner called Rory McIlroy’s India appearance a money grab: there he was aiming at someone else, here he is reading out his own release, and the useful information came with it.

What schedule is Kisner actually predicting for Woods?

A fuller one than Woods has managed in years, in stages. Kisner said he thinks Woods will play both the Hero World Challenge and the PNC Championship, the father and son event with Charlie, before TGL. His sketch, in the Post’s account, was to come back, get his feet wet at the Hero, play with Charlie, play some TGL, and get ready for Augusta. The evidence he offered for it was first-hand and recent: the way Woods was swinging and moving on the range, and a conclusion that the guy loves to compete. None of that is a commitment from Woods, and this article treats it as what it is, a close teammate’s informed prediction, stated on the record, by a man who was in the team room until this month. What a full TGL season involves is set out in the league’s own recent history, including the first TGL trade, which sent Shane Lowry to Boston Common: this is now a league with trades, expanded rosters and a seventh team, not a casual hit with friends.

What has changed in TGL for season three?

Plenty, and Kisner’s exit is one item on a longer list. GolfMagic reports that TGL confirmed its 35-player line-up on Monday, with 12 players making their debuts and a seventh team, Motor City Golf Club, led by Brooks Koepka. Teams grow from four players to five, with three competing in each match, and the season starts on December 27. Xander Schauffele, Adam Scott and Lucas Glover are also absent from the new rosters, and Rory McIlroy’s Boston Common side has added Shane Lowry and Michael Thorbjornsen. Against that churn, Jupiter Links choosing a current tour player in Mitchell over a semi-retired broadcaster in Kisner is ordinary team building. The extraordinary part is only the stated reason tied to Woods himself, that the founder and best player in the team’s history wants the full schedule at 50, in a season that also brought a new Monday qualifier story to the main tour in Austin Lemieux’s PGA Tour debut in Bermuda.

Why does the context of Woods’s year matter here?

Because a full schedule is a claim about his body and his life, not just his diary. The Post recounts that Woods returned from back and Achilles injuries on the final night of last TGL season, March 24, and was arrested for DUI in Jupiter Island three days later after his Land Rover crashed with a pressure-cleaning truck. He pleaded not guilty, refused a urine test, had two hydrocodone pills found in his pocket, did a rehab stint in Switzerland and returned home in June. GolfMagic adds that in September he agreed not to contest a reckless driving charge in a plea deal, accepting a five-year driving licence suspension and a $1,000 fine. He has not played competitively since missing the cut at the 2024 Open, per GolfMagic, which also notes a seventh back operation since then and a Masters withdrawal this year after the arrest. A man with that year behind him wanting a full indoor schedule is either a comeback in progress or a plan that December will test. Kisner’s range report points one way. Only Woods playing does.

What happens next?

The next hard fact is a roster appearance, not another podcast. TGL starts on December 27, and the Hero World Challenge and the PNC Championship come before it on Kisner’s predicted path, so Woods’s name on either field list would confirm the direction before TGL begins. Until then, the honest state of the story is this: the claim is second-hand, specific and uncontradicted, from a teammate with no reason to flatter the decision that removed him. Qualifying for the Masters is not Woods’s problem, as a past champion he can enter Augusta for life, which is why Kisner’s path ends there. Whether his body lets him walk it in April is the question the next four months are for.