Tiger Woods to Return Next Wednesday At Accenture Match Play

The wait is finally over. Tiger Woods announced Thursday on his personal website that he will be in the field next week at the Accenture Match Play in Marana, Ariz., a tournament Woods won last year over Stewart Cink.

This will be the first time Woods will compete in a competitive golf event since his heroic win at the U.S. Open last June, a tournament Woods winced his way through as he took down Rocco Mediate. Immediately after the victory, Tiger announced he would be undergoing reconstructive ACL surgery and that he was done for the '08 season.

Woods has won the Accenture Match Play event three times ('03, 04 and 08) and simply said on his site, "I'm now ready to play again."

Speculation has been tossed around to when Woods would be back on tour, and my take was he'd most likely skip the Accenture because the tournament can run five days, and there is an endless amount of holes one could play if the match you were playing in went to extra holes. Not only that, but if Tiger actually came back and played well in the thing, he would be forced to go 36 holes on both Saturday and Sunday.

No matter my thoughts, Tiger is back. The time has finally come and golf fans should rejoice. We get our king back. Not much is better news than that.