Tiger Woods says he's ready to play in upcoming Players Championship

— -- Tiger Woods announced Friday that he will compete in the upcoming Players Championship, the PGA Tour's flagship event that he won two years ago and missed due to injury last year.

After a T-17 result at the Masters, which culminated in a Sunday wrist injury, there had been speculation that Woods could miss at least one scheduled start. That speculation ended when he tweeted his intention to compete in a tournament that hasn't traditionally been one of his strongest.

In addition to the 2013 victory, Woods won in 2001. His 16 career appearances at the tournament, though, include just three other top-10 finishes -- well off his pace for most events.

This year's edition of the event will be contested May 7-10.

If there were lingering questions as to whether he would compete in the Players, they were first posed by Woods himself, directly after finishing at Augusta National two weeks ago.

"Not going to be for a while," he said then of his next start. "I have a little time off, and go back to the drawing board, work on it again, and refine what I'm doing. I really like what I'm doing; I've got my distance back and everything is good."

Friday's announcement comes on the heels of Jack Nicklaus' revelation earlier this week that Woods said he will compete in Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament, which will take place four weeks after the Players. Officially, then, Woods has just these two tournaments on his schedule prior to the U.S. Open, which begins June 18 at Chambers Bay in Washington state.

All of which should be considered good news for the 14-time major champion, who earlier this year took a nine-week layoff in order to recover from injury and shore up a game that found him posting uncharacteristically high scores in his previous two starts at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and Farmers Insurance Open.

Though Woods remains eligible for each of the three remaining major championships, he did not qualify for next week's WGC-Cadillac Match Play and is not currently qualified for the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Nor is he inside the necessary number required to compete in the season-ending FedEx Cup, which remains four months away.