SPRINGFIELD, N.J. — Like a phantom presence, Tiger Woods still looms at major championships, absent but not out of mind.
When Woods’s name came up arbitrarily during preparations for this week’s P.G.A. Championship, Jordan Spieth, for example, seized on it as an opportunity to herald Woods, tellingly separating him from today’s best golfers.
“I don’t think there’s any Tiger out here right now,” Spieth said of Woods, a four-time P.G.A. champion. “I think that’s fair to say.”
But Woods’s considerable influence on the game continues to echo. In the field for the first round of the P.