PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Tiger Woods is not positive what is going on to occur with subsequent month’s Genesis Invitational, the PGA Tour occasion that he hosts within the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles.
He is insisting there must be far larger considerations.
Woods mentioned Tuesday evening, after his debut within the TGL indoor golf league that he helped develop, that conferences about what’s going to occur with the match are scheduled, however didn’t reveal any choices or counsel that the occasion is perhaps moved from Riviera Nation Membership.
“We’re attempting to simply determine every thing out and make it possible for everyone seems to be secure, and we have now conferences scheduled going ahead,” Woods mentioned. “However as of proper now, we’re probably not centered on the match. It is extra about what we will do to assist everybody who’s struggling, who’s misplaced properties and had their lives modified.”
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Woods, who grew up in Southern California, mentioned he is aware of “a pair people who have misplaced every thing.”
“It is simply laborious,” Woods mentioned.
The PGA Tour has not introduced any modifications to its plans to play the Genesis, scheduled for Feb. 13-16. Riviera, the host website for golf on the 2028 Olympics, sits very near areas which were devastated by the fires. The course itself has not been immediately affected.
Woods’ TGL teammate Max Homa, additionally a Southern California native, mentioned the golf match’s standing must be removed from anybody’s thoughts proper now.
“I do know that these pure disasters occur far too typically. Nonetheless, this was the primary one I can bear in mind the place each information clip, each time somebody talked about an space, I might image it so effectively,” Homa mentioned. “It was very eerie. Luckily, all my family and friends are secure. Homes not essentially nonetheless all intact, but it surely was good to have the ability to discuss to fairly a couple of folks, and I feel their perspective has been superb about, ‘Hey, we’re secure, and that is what issues most.'”
Tickets have been nonetheless being bought Tuesday for the Genesis, although no one is aware of what’s going to occur over the subsequent few weeks or if it is going to even be attainable to play a match in Los Angeles.
“There’s so many different issues which can be larger than that,” Woods mentioned. “We’ve subsequent conferences to try to determine all that out.”
Woods’ Jupiter Hyperlinks group misplaced 12-1 in its TGL opener to the Los Angeles Golf Membership. Collin Morikawa, a part of the successful facet Tuesday, mentioned representing town weighed closely on him and teammates Justin Rose and Sahith Theegala.
Fires burning properties and companies in Los Angeles for every week have killed at the very least 25 folks, displaced hundreds and destroyed greater than 12,000 buildings in what is perhaps the costliest set of conflagrations within the nation’s historical past.
“You assume it is over, but it surely’s not,” Morikawa mentioned. “Winds are selecting up. Fires are nonetheless going. Persons are nonetheless on the market, preventing the fires, defending their homes, serving to their neighbors, serving to communities. That is why L.A. is, to me, such a terrific metropolis. You see all of the folks coming collectively.”
Morikawa wore the “LA Sturdy” T-shirt that’s being bought to boost cash for fireplace reduction efforts. Theegala, like Morikawa, has deep Southern California ties. He was born and raised within the space and went to school at Pepperdine. He mentioned his caddie’s sister misplaced her dwelling within the fires.
“I used to be on Pepperdine’s campus throughout the ’18 Woolsey fireplace, and it simply looks like an ongoing factor the final six, seven years. There is not any slowing down,” Theegala mentioned. “Earlier than that first fireplace occurred, it did not really feel actual in any respect. You see fires taking place, homes being burned down, folks’s lives being destroyed, and while you see it proper in entrance of your eyes, it is as actual because it will get and it is scarier than any media portrayal. It is scarier than something that is being described.”
Morikawa mentioned he took pleasure in with the ability to give folks in Los Angeles a distraction for a few hours, just like the Los Angeles Rams did of their NFC wild-card playoff win Monday evening, a recreation that was relocated to Arizona due to the fires.
“We’re most likely the latest group in L.A., however to get back-to-back wins with the Rams after which us … you snicker at that, I do know,” Morikawa mentioned. “However look, we do not take this frivolously.”
