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Tiger Woods decided Friday not to play next week in the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship, the second straight elite tournament he has skipped. The Mercedes is only for PGA Tour winners from the previous year; Woods also sat out the season-ending Tour Championship in November for the top 30 players on the money list.
And it takes some of the sizzle out of the tour's launch of its new FedEx Cup competition, which it has dubbed a "new era in golf" in print and TV advertising campaigns over the last month.
He ended last year winning six consecutive PGA Tour events, a streak that will remain on hold until Jan. 25 at the Buick Invitational in San Diego, where Woods is the two-time defending champion. He said on his website that the extra three weeks off "will give me much-needed extra time with my family."
"I considered playing in next week's Mercedes-Benz Championship, the official launch of the new FedEx Cup, but I just haven't been able to prepare," Woods said. "I usually spend at least one week working on my game before a tournament, and have been unable to do that this year."
It was the second straight year Woods will not play the winners-only tournament. He missed last year to spend time with his father, whose health was rapidly deteriorating from cancer. Earl Woods died May 3. The only other time Woods did not go to Kapalua was in 2003, when he was recovering from knee surgery.
"Hopefully, everyone will understand," Woods said. "Obviously, this was a tough decision because Gary Planos and his staff at Kapalua Resort always do such a great job with the event."
Planos, the vice president of operations at Kapalua and tournament host, looked for bright spots on a day of gathering clouds off the west coast of Maui.
"Obviously, we're disappointed, but we've got a championship to run next week," he said. "Players and weather are risks in this business that I wish I had better control of."
Woods' absence, however, is a setback to PGA Tour officials trying to build momentum for its new FedEx Cup competition.
The tour revamped its schedule to feature a points race that starts at Mercedes-Benz Championship and concludes with four "playoff" tournaments at the end of the season, with the winner getting US$10 million in deferred compensation.
The season starts Thursday without two of the most popular players in golf - Woods and Masters champion Phil Mickelson, who has not played at Kapalua since 2001. Ernie Els and Retief Goosen did not win on the PGA Tour last year, meaning the field at Kapalua will have only one major champion from '06 (Geoff Ogilvy) and only eight of the top 20 players in the world.
"We understand that when Tiger chooses not to play, fans and sponsors are disappointed," PGA Tour spokesman Bob Combs said. "It's important to remain focused that the Mercedes-Benz Championship still has a great field and there are lots of great story lines, including Stuart Appleby going for his fourth win in a row."
As for the FedExCup, Kapalua is the first of 35 tournaments to earn points and be among 144 players who qualify for the final four tournaments. Combs said someone will earn 4,500 points next week "and that person will be the first FedEx Cup points leader."
Woods will not have played on the PGA Tour for nearly four months when he returns at the Buick Invitational. His last tour event was the American Express Championship outside London, where he won by eight shots for his eighth victory of the year.
Woods has said his winning streak only applies to PGA Tour events. He lost in the first round of the HSBC World Match Play Championship in England two weeks before the American Express, and he was runner-up in two Asian tournaments in November.
He has never played more than 21 official PGA Tour events a year, and hit a career-low 15 this year, mainly because of his father's death. Woods has picked up more off-course interests in recent years, such as scuba diving, tennis and skiing, and he got married in 2004.
In an interview last month, he said he wasn't sure how the FedEx Cup would affect his schedule, but indicated he might play seven of the last nine weeks, including the Presidents Cup.
His decision not to play at Kapalua also is a blow to The Golf Channel, which will be televising the first two rounds of every PGA Tour event this season (except the majors), and will provide four-day coverage of the first three tournaments, starting with the Mercedes-Benz Championship.
TV ratings typically double whenever Woods is in contention, but the cable outlet probably won't get another chance this season to televise Woods on the weekend. Most of its four-day coverage is for tournaments after the FedEx Cup ends.
The Golf Channel, which only reaches about 90 million homes, ran a full-page ad Friday in USA Today with a photo of Woods rising tall over Appleby, the three-time defending champion at Kapalua, and Vijay Singh.
"As we've said all along, it's going to take a good part of the year to see how the FedEx Cup and playing schedules relate to one another," Combs said. "That's a little bit of a work in progress. But the key point is this is a season-long emphasis on competition. The tour is not one particular week, it's one year."
"I think we're going to have a great launch, regardless."
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