Update, 10:10 a.m.:
Jason Day told PGATour.com that he has withdrawn from the Bahamas event to be home with his wife, Ellie, who is pregnant with the couple’s third child and expected to give birth in June.
Original story:
The small field at the Hero World Challenge will be missing some Australian flavor following the withdrawals of Jason Day and Marc Leishman.
Day is ranked No. 11 in the world, while Leishman sits at No. 13. They will be replaced in the 18-man field by Henrik Stenson and Kevin Chappell.
Leishman is closing out a career year, having won twice on the PGA Tour including a wire-to-wire victory at the BMW Championship in September. Rather than a trip to Albany in the Bahamas Nov. 30-Dec. 3, Leishman will instead return to Australia to tee it up in the Australian PGA Championship.
The field at Royal Pines will also include Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and defending champ Harold Varner III.
“It’s a two-hour flight (to Albany) from my house over in America, so I could zip down there, play the tournament and he home,” Leishman told the Australian Associated Press. “But it just wasn’t sitting right in my stomach that I wasn’t going home this year.”
While Leishman will travel south later this month, Day will not be in the field for the Australian PGA despite pulling out of the Hero. After beginning the year ranked No. 1 in the world, he has battled issues with form while also coping with his mother’s cancer diagnosis and a surprising shift at caddie mid-season.
With the inclusion of Stenson and Chappell, the limited field is once again set. Tournament host Tiger Woods will make his first competitive start since February, while other participants include world No. 1 Dustin Johnson as well as current major champs Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka.
Source: Internet
