Tiger Woods's return at the Bridgestone Invitational comes with his ranking in freefall.
American returns to action with ranking in freefall
Tiger Woods's return to golf will come as he suffers his biggest one-week drop in the world rankings.
Woods will play the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Ohio - his first event since mid-May - 28th at best on the rankings, a fall of seven places from this week.
And his position will be even lower if Open champion Darren Clarke has a top-two finish in the Irish Open or American Gary Woodland wins the Greenbrier Classic in West Virginia.
The former world number one, who has been suffering from knee and Achilles tendon injuries and missed both the US Open and The Open during his lay-off, fell out of the top 20 this Monday for the first time since January 1997.
He has also fired Steve Williams, caddie for 13 of his 14 major titles, after the New Zealander apparently upset him by working for Adam Scott at the AT&T National without seeking permission.
It was reported on
The Golf Channel that childhood friend Bryon Bell, president of Tiger Woods Design, would return to caddieing duties at Firestone, although there has been no confirmation of that yet.
Woods is without a major since the 2008 US Open and without a tournament win since November 2009, but was still world number one as recently as last October.
This is how his rankings has plunged since then:
Oct 25 - 1st 8.31pts, November 1 - 2nd 8.13, January 24 3rd 7.13, February 28 5th 6.32, April 4 7th 5.64, April 11 5th 6.07 (this after finishing fourth in The Masters), April 18 6th 5.89, May 2 7th 5.54, May 9 8th 5.37, May 23 12 5.03, May 30 13th 4.86, June 6 15th 4.69, June 20 17th 4.38, July 11 19th 3.93, July 18 20th 3.78, July 25th 21st 3.64, August 1 28th 3.49 (provisional).
