By Jason Sobel
ESPN.com
Tiger Woods is the greatest thing to happen to golf in a long, long time. And he isn't.
Before jabbing a 3-iron through the computer screen, bear with me. Ever since Woods burst onto the scene a dozen years ago, there's been some sentiment that the professional game can't survive at its most-elite levels without its top-ranked player in the mix -- and there's something to that notion. Although Woods competes in about one-third of all PGA Tour events each year, those without him in the fold often are considered second-class citizens, which in essence creates a division on the annual schedule.
With Wednesday's news that Woods will miss the remainder of the season after undergoing surgery on his ACL while also rehabilitating a double stress fracture of his left tibia, the golf world will find out whether any of those players not named Woods can move the needle both in terms of TV ratings and attendance at events.
Look, golf has been around since the first Scotsman put stick to ball back in 1456. The first major championship was held in 1860, and the sport developed plenty of history before Woods' pro debut in 1996.
Without the world's No. 1 player, golf will survive. A deserving champion will earn a Claret Jug at the British Open next month; another will receive the Wanamaker Trophy at the PGA Championship thereafter. Either the U.S. will hoist the Ryder Cup in September or it won't. The point is, golf isn't going anywhere. It just might seem like it without Tiger around.
That gets us to another point. Two kinds of events are on the PGA Tour: the Tiger Tournaments … and the Other Ones.
Not surprisingly, studies have shown that PGA Tour events without Tiger in the field or in contention have had a severe drop in television ratings the past few years. According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, "tournaments in which he finished in the top five had a 171 percent increase in CBS' ratings over those in which he did not play or wasn't in contention. … In similar tournaments on NBC, the ratings increase was 59 percent. … The two-network average showed an increase of 111 percent."
Woods' absence will be felt strongly for the rest of the year. He likely would have played next week at the Buick Invitational and the following week at the AT&T National, which he hosts. He has thrived at World Golf Championship events, especially at Firestone, where the Bridgestone Invitational will start July 31. The PGA Championship, where he is the defending champion, is the following week.
The FedEx Cup playoffs, which Woods won last year, start Aug. 21 with The Barclays, the first of four weeks of events. (Woods likely would have played three.) The Ryder Cup is Sept. 19-21, followed by the Tour Championship.
In all, Woods will miss nine events in which he normally would have played, plus his Chevron World Challenge event in December.
"Tiger is our tour," Kenny Perry said from the Travelers Championship, where the PGA Tour is playing this week in Cromwell, Conn. "When you lose your star player, it definitely hurts."
Some upcoming events where Woods would likely have played are, publicly at least, taking it in stride.
"Tiger is an enormous attraction, there's no denying that," Royal and Ancient Golf Club chief executive Peter Dawson said. "But the Open Championship has had many exciting finishes which Tiger has not been part of, and I'm sure there will be more. It's very sad. We're very sorry that he's succumbed to the injury and he won't be competing in the Open."
"We anticipate having another fantastic event with a great field of professionals playing on a world-class golf course at Congressional Country Club," said Greg McLaughlin, president of the Tiger Woods Foundation, the benefactor of the AT&T National, which Woods hosts.
"For an athlete as talented and competitive as Tiger Woods, taking the rest of the season off must have been an incredibly difficult yet necessary decision, one that we understand and support completely," PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said in a statement.
So now, with Woods on the shelf until at least January, we'll glimpse a golf world without its biggest drawing card. It's a world that houses no active member with more than three career major championship victories, one in which only one player -- Phil Mickelson -- owns multiple PGA Tour wins in two dozen tournaments so far this season. When Tiger does not rule, parity does, which implies that an eternal optimist could view the next three months as potentially more intriguing without him.
For that, however, such an optimist would need to be a golf fan and not simply a Tiger Woods fan. Strange as it may sound, the two are often mutually exclusive. Adoration for Woods has transcended admiration for the game itself, and it remains to be seen whether renewed competitive balance will be enough to hold fans' interest throughout the remainder of the season.
During Woods' eight-week post-Masters hiatus, Mickelson won at Colonial, Adam Scott won the Byron Nelson, Sergio Garcia won the Players and Anthony Kim won the Wachovia, though each victory was met with a respective twinge of doubt because of Woods' absence -- even the first two events, which weren't in his original scheduling plans anyway. Yet it's players like those -- all elite, top-level pros and, in the case of all but Mickelson, age 28 or younger -- who will need to move the needle in the upcoming Tiger-free zone.
So what does Tiger's surgery mean for the rest of the 2008 golf season?
No British Open, no PGA Championship, no Ryder Cup and no Tour Championship. And for many golf fans, it means no excitement for the rest of 2008.
Jason Sobel covers golf for ESPN.com. He can be reached at Jason.Sobel@espn3.com.
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