Woods headlines Memorial field

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Tiger Woods hopes a little home cooking will get his golf game back on the winning track next week at the 40th Memorial Tournament.

Woods should feel right at home at Muirfield Village Golf Club, where he has won the Memorial a record five times. The former world No. 1 player -- now ranked 156th -- was among the 120 golfers on the tournament's official entry list released today. The tournament begins Thursday.

Woods, who missed last year's Memorial while recovering from back surgery, has played only twice -- the Masters and the Players Championship -- since Feb. 5.

The entrants also include No. 2 Jordan Spieth and eight more of the top 15 players in the world rankings. Besides Spieth, they are defending champion Hideki Matsuyama, Rickie Fowler, Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott, Patrick Reed and former Memorial champions Justin Rose and Jim Furyk. Five-time major championship winner Phil Mickelson also is in the field.

Other former Memorial winners entered are Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, K.J. Choi, Matt Kuchar, Kenny Perry, Carl Pettersson and Steve Stricker.

Rory McIlroy, No. 1 in the world, did not enter, but six of the top 10 did. After struggling the past two weeks in Europe with missed cuts at the BMW PGA Championship and Irish Open, McIlroy is not scheduled to play again until the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay. Other top 10s to skip the tournament are Henrik Stenson, Bubba Watson and Sergio Garcia.

Among those who did not qualify to play but received sponsor's exemptions from the tournament is Mt. Vernon resident Tim Crouch, an All-American at Florida Southern and two-time Division II national champion.

Practice rounds begin on Monday. The Nationwide Invitational pro-am and ceremony for 2015 honoree Nick Faldo are on Wednesday.

This article was written by Rob Oller from The Columbus Dispatch and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.