The PGA's endangered Tiger

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Try to imagine a Masters without Tiger Woods.

If you're a golf fan, it's pretty unimaginable. If you're an official with the Augusta National, the PGA Tour, CBS (Charts), a sponsor or maker of golf gear, the idea of the sport's highest profile event without its most popular player is downright terrifying.

If Woods skips the new FedEx Cup tournaments this year, the sports' new playoffs will be the big loser, not the game's most popular golfer.

But week in, week out, that's the case with most of the tour's lesser tournaments. Tiger only plays about 15 events a year.

It would be like the best quarterback in the NFL sitting out nine games a year, or best slugger in baseball sitting for 95 games, not because they're hurt, but just because they don't feel like playing.

The lack of Woods has already been blamed for the demise of one PGA Tour stop. The International, played over the fourth of July weekend, essentially went out of business this year after 21 years. Woods had not played in the tournament since 1999.

Officials in golf say there's really nothing they can do to mitigate the so-called Tiger effect, or the splitting of the PGA Tour into the Tiger Tour haves and have-nots.

"The only way not to have a positive Tiger effect is not to have a guy like Tiger. And nobody wants that," Dave Manougian, CEO of the Golf Channel, said recently on a panel at the World Congress of Sports.

Woods actually has stepped in to sponsor his own tour stop outside of Washington D.C. to replace The International in the schedule. But because his wife is due to have their first child about that time, there's a chance he won't even play in the inaugural of his own tournament.

Woods can only really be counted on to play the sports' four major tournaments and some events sponsored by companies he receives millions in endorsement money from, such as Buick, Accenture (Charts) and American Express (Charts). And he's only generally played one of the two events sponsored by GM- (Charts)owned Buick in any given year.

Tiger is far from alone. Top golfers today make enough money that they don't have to play every week to make a good living, and can get by playing just the PGA's minimum number of events.

But this year Tiger's limited schedule could get even more attention since he may forgo much of the new four-tournament playoff system the PGA is debuting this fall as it tries to give the sports the championship structure common in other sports but absent in golf.

The FedEx Cup will be awarded after a "regular season" points championship, followed by the playoffs. But the way the points are structured, it's likely that Tiger can be one of the point leaders even with his limited schedule. He could even skip one or more of the early rounds of the playoff and still be in the hunt for the $10 million check that will go to the cup's winner.

While I'm sure that the Yankees would have appreciated the chance to jump straight to the World Series the last three years without those pesky early playoff rounds, it clearly would have been a blow to the credibility of the postseason had they done so.

But so far Woods hasn't committed to playing in all of the events. It's possible that he'll even pass up all of them, which frankly would diminish the playoffs and the Cup more than his standing in the eyes of golf fans.

One of the strengths of the Masters, frankly, is its place in the schedule, copuled with its tradition and return to the same fabled course year after year. This is a time of year when there isn't much in the way of competition for sports fans' attention. The excitement of the start of the baseball season and the NCAA basketball tournament is over, the postseason has yet to begin for basketball and hockey.

The new PGA playoffs, with its final set for mid-September, will face far tougher competition from start of NFL season and baseball's pennant races. And the debut year of any sports event by definition lacks tradition.

Officials involved with the new playoffs insist they will generate more fan interest than in the past and be successful, even if Tiger is MIA.

"You'd love to have Tiger play. But from our point of view it will be good with or without Tiger," Bill Margaritis, chief spokesman for FedEx (Charts), said at the World Congress of Sports panel. "For the first time you'll have the best golfers competing week in, week out, in a compressed time frame for a marquee finish. And it's going to cast a spotlight on some players who aren't normally in the spotlight."

But it's questionable how bright that spotlight would be without Tiger. So if the Masters and this year's other major tournaments are the only time you watch him, or golf, this year, you won't be alone.

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