Tiger Woods to play Turkish Open in November

Tiger Woods will make a return appearance in Turkey in November, but this time the event will be more than a high-stakes exhibition match.

Woods will participate in the 78-player field Turkish Open, slated for November 7-November 10, according to published reports. The world No. 1 appeared in Turkey last year in the unofficial World Golf Final, in which he lost to Justin Rose in the semifinals.

This year’s contest, with a $7 million purse, will be the third of four “Final Series” contests in the Euro Tour season, a group of tourneys similar to the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs. Woods, as usual, will be the headliner and fan magnet.

“We almost based the tournament date with the European Tour around which week [Woods] could play, and it just so happened that this week suited the European Tour and Tiger Woods,” Chubby Chandler of International Sports Management, which is promoting the event, told reporters. “And Turkey being a country of not that many golfers, I’m afraid that the other 77 players in Turkey won’t be the sort of familiar names to the Turkish people, whereas Tiger is.”

Woods’ presence may also boost Turkey’s chances of hosting the 2020 Olympics, Ahmet Agaoglu, the president of the Turkish Golf Federation, told The Guardian.