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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- The clerk at my hotel is rooting for a certain somebody with savoir faire, panache and charisma to light up the leaderboard this weekend.
Her place of employment has a huge financial stake in the happenings at the Players Championship, after all, and a PGA Tour understudy needs to step up and fill the void because the headliner went home.
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| At least PGA Tour honcho Tim Finchem can count on former President George H.W. Bush's attendance. (Getty Images) |
The idle chatter took place because the biggest idol in golf isn't here this week, missing the tournament for the first time as a pro after undergoing knee surgery. As a result, the hotel in question wasn't nearly full because a fleet of guests canceled reservations over the past couple of weeks, she said.
Everybody understands that world No. 1 Tiger Woods has a huge impact on TV ratings, which was borne out last weekend at the Wachovia Championship when viewer numbers were roughly half what they were when he won the same event last spring. His massive impact on purses over the arc of his career has been obvious, too.
Yet this week, at the tour's showcase event staged on the iconic course located in its very backyard, the financial Eldrick Effect has been felt like never before. Like the song lyric says, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
An econ recon was clearly in order.
Granted, all of these findings are anecdotal, utterly unscientific and entirely arguable. But from the morning we stepped onto the property this week at TPC Sawgrass, it felt like something was missing. It wasn't just the buzz that traditionally accompanies Woods, either.
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It might be the fans. Nobody is at fault for Woods' absence, of course, but golf nonetheless is getting an unanticipated lesson in Tiger microeconomics. From hotels and restaurants to tertiary folks like ticket scalpers, it's going to be a long and lean week, compared with what was expected before Woods was forced to withdraw.
As is often the case, the best gauge of fan demand can be measured via the rough-hewn guys hawking tickets on street corners outside any sports venue. The scalpers Friday morning looked equal parts desperate and bored as they took up their positions at sunrise alongside State Highway A1A, which fronts the property.
"Terrible, terrible," one scalper groused after he was roused from his position, leaning up against a restaurant sign outside an area strip mall. "Man, I can show you 50 tickets from yesterday that I couldn't sell."
Mind you, the event has been announced as a sellout and demand among the scalpers in past years has usually been steady, he said. Face value on the tickets is $75 but nobody was getting anywhere near that on the street. In the 15 years he has been hawking tickets at Sawgrass, this is the worst it has ever been, he said.
"My friend over there said, 'There's no Tiger in the woods,'" the scalper laughed, pointing at his equally bored buddy stationed across the street. "There's usually cars lined up in this here parking lot waiting for us."
