And already observers are wondering whether this is the incident that should finally shake golf from its Tiger Woods dependency, because the sport has repeatedly seemed duty bound to turn to the 50-year-old to shape its future.
Augusta wanted a new public nine-hole golf course – The Loop. Let’s get Tiger to design it.
The PGA Tour sets up a committee to decide its future shape. Let’s get Tiger to chair it.
The US needs to win back the Ryder Cup. Let’s get Tiger to be Captain America.
The list goes on.
Woods has been a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board since August 2023 and vice-chairman of the PGA Tour Enterprises board for the past two years.
The tour also brought in a special rule to make Woods eligible for all of their big money Signature Events, even though the current world number 3,736 has completed all four rounds in only four tournaments since 2020.
His TMRW Sports company, in conjunction with Rory McIlroy, set up the TGL Indoor league, supported by the PGA Tour. Its second season concluded last Tuesday with a perspiring Woods making a TV ratings-boosting appearance in the finals.
“His on-course presence is matched by his voice or his off-course presence,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan told ESPN four years ago, when his circuit was desperately trying to fight off the threat of the breakaway LIV Golf league.
“I think his peers look at him as a leader; the leader on the golf course, but also a leader off of it.”
But for how much longer?
Will Woods be present for the scheduled opening of The Loop next week?
Or will he be lying low, as he has done when previous car crashes have revealed a troubled side to his life?
And if he does disappear from the fray, how can he continue to chair the US tour’s future competitions committee? Bosses want the time ahead mapped out by the end of June – for them the timing could not be worse.
