World's best golfers set to return for Woods-hosted World Challenge

Albany (Bahamas), Oct 19 (IANS) Rory McIlroy will play at the 2021 Hero World Challenge (HWC) as 15 of the world's top-20 golfers turn up for the event hosted by Tiger Woods at Albany, Bahamas, from December 2-5.

This year's event will include two additional players after the field was permanently expanded from 18 to 20. Fifteen of the players set to compete rank inside the top-20 in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Collin Morikawa, winner of the 2020 PGA Championship and 2021 Open Championship, will make his tournament debut and be joined by 2020 US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau, 2021 Masters winner Hideki Matsuyama and defending World Challenge winner Henrik Stenson.

Starting this year, the winner of THE PLAYERS Championship also received an invitation to the World Challenge, with Justin Thomas set to compete again at Albany.

Xander Schauffele returns to Albany following his gold medal performance at the Tokyo Olympics this summer.

The field for the HWC features three previous winners of the event in Stenson (2019), Matsuyama (2016) and Spieth (2014), the winners of 20 major championships, and 14 players who competed in the Ryder Cup in September.

The field includes Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Schauffele, Justin Thomas, DeChambeau, Tony Finau, Brooks Koepka, Harris English, Abraham Ancer, McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Jordan Spieth, Daniel Berger, Tyrrell Hatton, Patrick Reed, Webb Simpson, Scottie Scheffler and Rose.