A Gap in Players' Thinking

I read PGA Tour Confidential on golf.com this week and saw this tidbit:

No Tiger Woods? No problem for us players.

Sure, next week's Players is the first significant (not the same as major) championship in a long time without Tiger, but we're already over it. We're not going to give him a second thought — except when the Tiger-obsessed media grill us about him, which I expect to happen endlessly from Monday through Wednesday.

But once the tournament begins, nobody will even mention his name, which is going to be a big problem for the folks at Golf Channel. Without their franchise player, I don't know what they're going to talk about.

Then I read Thomas Bonk in the LA Times, and this from Sal Johnson at Golf Observer about the ratings for the Wachovia:

There are lots of storylines this week. Beginning with what will a big event like this be without Tiger Woods. Yes, he hasn't done very well in this event, but he will still be missed. Just look at the whiplash at the Wachovia, CBS averaged a 1.6 overnight rating for the Saturday and Sunday shows, a drop of 48% from last year. As one sports blog site said, the PGA Tour would be better off simply canceling events that Woods isn't playing in.

There is a big mistake being made that any player would be happy Tiger is not there. There were 99 millionaires on Tour last year - all but maybe 10 or 15 of those were because of Tiger Woods. Sure, they love the money he brings to the Tour, but they hate playing against him. Where's the appreciation? No respect, no respect at all.