No Tiger, no sex appeal for TPC?

PONTE VEDRA BEACH — It has been seven years since he won The Players and the last three times he played in the tournament he finished out of the top 20.

So what's the big deal about Tiger Woods missing this year's tournament?

That's a rhetorical question, of course, because any tournament without Woods loses its sex appeal right from the start. He is not only golf's best player, he commands all of the spotlight.

“He is our lead story,” said Jim Furyk.

But the lead story is still recovering from knee surgery, which makes a tournament trying to take steps toward becoming the fifth major take a step back. No matter who wins, you'll wonder what would have happened if Tiger was here.

That's just the way it is on Tour. Woods has drawn more people to the game but those people won't be drawn to an event they are watching on TV. The local buzz isn't as loud and the national media members the PGA Tour hoped would be drawn to the tournament with the change to a May date are staying home as well.

It's still a phenomenal event with the best field in golf, including everyone who has won a tournament in the last two years and a purse equal to Alex Rodriguez's take-home pay for a month.

The shame of it is that TPC Sawgrass may be in the best shape it has been in since Pete Dye's bulldozers started pushing dirt around 27 years ago. It's going to play the way Dye designed it to play, fast and firm under a baking sun, a true test of golf's best players.

But because golf's greatest player isn't here, it loses something.

“It's going to be tougher for the producer to figure out who he's going to follow on Thursday and Friday,” Furyk said.

It'll also be tough for the members of the gallery to figure out who to follow. Phil Mickelson, the defending champ, will be the crowd favorite, but Philly Mick doesn't command the following that Woods does.

For the golfers, it will be different as well as they usually have one eye on the ball and another on the leaderboard in a tournament with this much at stake.

“When he's in the field, the first thing you look at on the scoreboard, on the leaderboard, is what did Tiger shoot,” said Mickelson. “That's obviously going to be different so you don't have that thought.”

Maybe that will allow the golfers to relax a little, even though the course is going to play so difficult that anyone under par should be in contention on Sunday.

It is on Sunday that the Woods factor — or non-factor — will really come into play. There will not need to wonder about the roars that come with a Tiger charge. How many times have we seen some of golf's best players crash and burn because Woods is in the lead?

“You want to tee it up on Sunday against Tiger and test yourself against the game's best player,” Furyk said. “That's exciting. But I don't think we look at this event and because he's not here, I have a better chance of winning.”

The truth is that Woods has the sixth best scoring average in the tournament's history but has struggled to find consistency since winning in 2001 (back when the winner's share was a measly million dollars). He barely made the cut last year and has had only five of 24 rounds under 70 vs. 11 rounds over par.

But he's Tiger.

And any time he tees it up, he's the man to beat until he's no longer the man to beat.

His absence leaves a wide-open tournament which should be good for golf. But Tiger has created a personae that leaves a big hole when he's not around.

Over the next four days we'll see if someone — whether it be Mickelson or Adam Scott or Boo Weekley or 22-year-old Anthony Kim — can fill that void.