Three days after Tiger Woods committed to his first PGA Tour event in 14 months, he abruptly withdrew, leaving this week’s Safeway Open with twice as many tickets sold as a year ago but a fraction of the star power.
The Woods wing of fans descending on Napa, Calif., this week will still be able to see the five-time major winner Phil Mickelson, no small consolation prize. But the announcement of Woods’s withdrawal, first reported by Golf Channel on Monday and later confirmed by Woods in a statement posted on his website, came as the interest in his comeback had intensified into a Category 4 hype storm.