Tiger Woods' announcement that he will play in next week's Valspar Championship (in addition to the following week's Arnold Palmer Invitational) got golf fans — and NBC executives — in a tizzy on Friday. But the news wound up being a blow to fellow PGA Tour pro Jonathan Randolph, who got bumped from having a guaranteed spot in the field to being the Tampa Bay Area event's first alternate.
However, Randolph handled the situation better than expected. Turns out, he's a huge Tiger fan as well.
But Randolph, who had his best-ever PGA Tour finish with a solo third at the Sanderson Farms Championship earlier this season, was in an even better mood a few hours later. When a couple of the event's original commitments, including Patton Kizzire, pulled out, he was back in the tournament.
Kizzire happened to play with Woods the first two rounds at last week's Honda Classic. We'd love to see Randolph's reaction if he's fortunate enough to get a similar pairing at Innisbrook next week.
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