What will the rest of 2008 be like without Tiger?
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents
Losing the No. 1 player in the world, the man who also happens to be the most recognizable athlete on the planet, indefinitely is certainly a daunting prospect for the game of golf.
No one knows when Tiger Woods and his surgically reconstructed left knee will be ready to tee it up again. Speculation centers around the Buick Invitational in January, 2009 but some predict his return to competition could come as late as at the Masters next year.
The Buick Invitational is certainly a logical assumption. Woods has won the tournament at Torrey Pines six times already. Ironically, the frailty in his knee became evident at the same course three weeks ago as he won the U.S. Open.
Woods doesn't want to rush it, though, as he did when he came to Torrey Pines with two stress fractures in his left leg, as well as the torn ACL that prompted last week's surgery. His iron will and abundant talent, though, neutralized the pain and propelled Woods to that thrilling playoff victory over Rocco Mediate.
In Woods' absence this summer, two majors -- the British Open and PGA Championship -- will be contested. Consider this, he hasn't missed one of golf's crown jewels since the 1996 PGA, and he's won 14 of them along the way.
In September, the U.S. will try to win back the Ryder Cup for the first time since 1999 without its leader and five-time team member. The PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup will unfold without the man who won last year's inaugural $10 million bonus.
A healthy Woods would have been there for all of those events. Now he's gone indefinitely, ready to rehabilitate and reconnect with his wife and 1-year-old daughter Sam back home in Orlando.
The PGA TOUR admittedly will be a very different place without Woods competing. Opportunities abound for others, though, and every expectation is that the man many consider the greatest player to ever live will come back stronger than ever.
"Our TOUR is doing wonderful," Mediate said. "It's fine. Is it the same without Tiger? Of course not. If anybody says it is, they are lying. He will definitely be missed.
"But all of a sudden opportunities opened up. There will be two major winners in the next month and a half or two that don't have to face him. ... It's a totally different ballgame, because you know if he was healthy he would be somewhere in there like he always is.
"So it's going to open up two big, huge opportunities, and the FedExCup stuff is wide open now because seriously, I don't think anyone was going to beat him. A lot of things have opened up because he had to go down with this knee injury."
At the same time, though, winning any tournament where Woods is in the field brings a special satisfaction to players like Mediate and Justin Leonard.
"We all probably have a little better chance of winning the events that he was going to play," Leonard said. ""But you know, you still want to beat the best guys, and when you win a tournament ... you've really accomplished something when you go beat Tiger Woods in an event.
"And that's not going to happen the rest of the year."
In Woods' absence, Kenny Perry says, fans need to keep an open mind. There are lots of other talented players who can contend. People just need to be willing to embrace them, and the PGA TOUR needs to market those players, as well.
"But it is a great opportunity for all of us," Perry said. "When he's not in the field, now we've got FedExCup, the $10 million up for grabs, there's just going to be a lot of opportunities for guys that normally wasn't going to get to have.
"I hate to see him go, but yet I like to see my chance to have an opportunity to win something; to have a chance to win, to win the FedExCup."
Jim Furyk said that tournaments -- like last week's Buick Open -- that Woods normally plays will probably feel the pinch more than others. At the same time, the majors will still offer excitement in and of themselves.
"'It will be difficult but still going to be a lot of good golf," Furyk said. "We've had a lot of exciting tournaments that he has not teed it up in this year, so hopefully that will continue."
But the bottom line, said Furyk, who partnered Woods to three wins at last year's Presidents Cup, is his friend's health.
"More than anything, I really hope that ... he takes the time to come back 100 percent," Furyk said. "I've had surgery; I've had injuries; and you want to get back, you want to get playing. And a lot of times, guys come back too early and they are not fully healed, and then that process ends up taking longer and you end up costing yourself time.
"So I hope that he gets fully healed and he waits enough time and when he comes back, he'll be 100 percent, and he'll dominate again. He's done it for the last ten years. There's no reason why he's not going to do it for as long as he wants to in the future."
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