Their chances of winning tournaments are better without him, but it’s clear the players on the PGA Tour would much rather have Tiger Woods in the field Thursday through Sunday.

At this weekend’s tour stop, Tiger’s statement on Friday was a big topic of conversation.  Many have reached into their bags and pulled out the ‘no comment’ club.  A few others offer milquetoast responses to reporters’ questions.  They’re tired of talking about it and really, what can they say?  Passing judgment in public likely wouldn’t be well accepted by some.

It would be nice to see more players offer up some thoughtful responses on the whole subject because it has so many tentacles that affect the tour, pro sports and society.  Did Tiger pull the wool over our eyes by letting his marketers form this ‘determined family man’ image?  Is he a victim of too much success too soon?  Few of his PGA Tour colleagues are willing to even share their opinions.

Here’s what they were saying this week:

No doubt, the players probably lay a lot of the blame for what could be a very soft season squarely on Tiger. There are other stars playing pro golf, but Woods is such a mega force that a lot of people dismiss the Tour without him as if a win doesn’t really count if Tiger isn’t in the field. The Tour needs him and it doesn’t sound like he’s anywhere ready to come back. Tiger and “the rest of the field” are joined at the hip, for better or worse. They say they’ll be patient and wait for him, but the circus that will ensue once he does come back isn’t something the “field” deserves.

The PGA TOUR, through its partnership with Turner Sports, is bringing  the official PGA TOUR App for iPhone and iPod touch to fans at no cost.  The PGA TOUR App, released late last month, offers  PGATOUR.COM’s live video streaming and live scoring to  to iPhone and iPod touch users for each of the four PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup tournaments

Following the Playoffs, the app will be available throughout the PGA TOUR Fall Series and beyond, providing fans instant access to every player and tournament. The PGATOUR App is the only golf application to offer fans access to PGATOUR.COM’s exclusive content, including custom live leaderboards, video highlights, play-by-play coverage, player stats and award-winning editorial franchises.

“PGATOUR.COM leads the field in its coverage of the PGA TOUR and continues to provide innovative, inside-the-ropes access that allows fans to follow golf action no matter where they are,” said Matthew Hong, Turner Sports vice president and general manager of sports digital. “The launch of the official PGA TOUR App expands the site’s portfolio of live coverage and the set of platforms on which our exclusive content around all aspects of the PGA TOUR is optimized.”

“This new application is a natural extension of the PGA TOUR’s desire to serve golf fans with the highest level of PGA TOUR coverage wherever they are,” said Lee Bushkell, vice president and general manager, PGATOUR.COM. “We’re excited to introduce it in time for fans to follow the excitement throughout the PGA TOUR Playoffs as the third FedExCup champion is crowned.”

The PGA TOUR App will stream live video from all four Playoff Tournaments — The Barclays and Deutsche Bank Championships, BMW Championship (Sept. 10-13) and THE TOUR Championship  (Sept. 24-27). Leveraging PGATOUR.COM’s award-winning LIVE@ franchise, iPhone and iPod touch users can watch live video from the course.

Other features of the PGA TOUR App include live scoring, customizable leaderboards and tee times, giving fans instant access to every shot from their favorite TOUR players. The app also provides in-depth course breakdowns, hole images and descriptions from all TOUR events. Other features include in-round video highlights and shots of the day, player profiles and stats, PGA TOUR news and leaderboards, tee times and tournament schedules for the Champions Tour and Nationwide Tour.

The PGA TOUR App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

John Daly still has some appeal to corporate America.

A week before he’s scheduled to rejoin the PGA Tour after a six-month suspension, Daly has signed an endorsement energy drink maker All Sport. The company’s Big Red logo will be displayed on his golf bag.

“Corporate America believes in his comeback,” agent Bud Martin said Thursday.

Daly was kicked off the Tour for a series of events that brought a flurry of negative press, including an overnight stay in a North Carolina jail to get sober.

Daly will be back on the course in a U.S. Open qualifier on Monday in Memphis, where he’ll tee it up in the St. Jude Championship next weekend.

From the Associated Press:

Daly was suspended for six months in November after a series of off-course incidents that brought negative publicity, the latest a picture of him in an orange jail suit with his eyes half-closed after being locked up to get sober in North Carolina.

He has played eight times overseas during his suspension, and tied for second earlier this month in the Italian Open.

“I know I’ll be ready to play,” Daly said.

It’s really amusing to read comments from European golf fans regarding the return of Tiger Woods.  A BBC report on the dramatic final hole birdie to win Sunday included reader comments at the bottom that ranged from bizarre to just plain humorous.

A sampling:

“I’ve said it before, I don’t think Tiger is that exciting. All he needs to do is make the odd birdie, and his opponents fold like Phil Hellmuth. Not Tiger’s fault, he knows how to take advantage of this, and grind out wins. This in itself is a great skill, but I would hardly say he was unmissable. Plus, I think people find the over the top adulation rather boring and somewhat nauseating.”

“I think what’s being reflected here is, dare I say it, a nagging sense of disappointment that pro golf is now returning to it’s old Tiger-dominated state. We’ve had eight months of fantastically exciting golf, where the networks have actually shown OTHER golfers playing! Now we’re back to the old predictable way of things. I just switch off when Tiger takes the lead, because it becomes so boringly inevitable. I have huge respect for Tiger, he is the greatest golfer of all time. But golf was becoming so much more fun to watch. And now it’s over….”

“Very good he undoubtedly is but he’s rarely jump out of your seat exciting. Last exciting thing I remember him doing was that chip-in from the back of 16 at Augusta. THAT was exciting although seeing him dunk it in water has a certain attraction.”

“Can’t say i have ever bet on tiger…. in my eyes he’s poor odds and never a cetainty. Still an amazing golfer just not for betting on.”

Not every post was anti-Tiger; in fact, there were a number who were awed by Sunday’s latest dramatics.  But it’s sad, really, when one of the few players in golf history who can captivate casual fans with his incredible shot-making and competitive zeal can’t get more worldwide respect.  The Tour ‘more exciting’ without Tiger?  Uh…better check those TV ratings.  Any player with a victory during Tiger’s tour absence shouldn’t be required to give it back, but you’d have to be a fool to think that most fans won’t consider it worthy of an asterisk in the record book.  And if you don’t find Tiger exciting, then who in the name of Nicklaus IS exciting?

High tech has come to pro golf in a number of different ways.  Streaming video of PGA Tour events isn’t quite there yet.  At least not in the opinion of one firm that monitors such things.

Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of Keynote Systems, monitored the live streaming performance – meaning streaming quality and availability – of the World Golf Championship held in Doral, Florida last week. The company monitored live streams of the event from 16 geographical locations worldwide during the final round last Sunday.   Keynote tested streaming performance at some time during the final day of the tournament from 23 different geographic locations.  The results: online streaming performance was far from a hole in one. In fact, they say the performance was rather dismal. While some lucky golf enthusiasts may have been able to view the entire tournament at high quality, many others were unable to even connect to the streams and likely switched back to watching the event on television.

The overall availability of live streams of the event, was at a very low 64 percent. It appears that among North American cities San Francisco, Seattle and Atlanta experienced the best streaming performance, while viewers in Chicago, Washington, New York and LA might not have gotten very far in being successfully able to view the event as it was being streamed live. Streaming performance in London, Paris and Amsterdam was better than the four poor performing US cities. The good news is that people who did manage to actually connect to the World Golf Championships’ live streams had an excellent user experience, much like they would have experienced had they watched the event on live television.

The majority of the problems occurred between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. ET, when connection timeouts and buffering events peaked for certain locations. Also, as the tournament was coming to its highlight, the critical 18^th hole, overall availability dropped to below 20 percent.  That will certainly frustrate those who were hoping to see the decisive action online.  Keynote says the infrastructure for allowing many people to view a live streamed event concurrently is still in great need of improvement.

Keynote tentatively plans to monitor streaming video of The Masters April 6^th to April 12^th.

Contrary to what seems to be current popular opinion, there was a PGA Tour before Tiger Woods went pro a dozen years ago.

No, really. They held tournaments and everything.  TV.  Winner’s checks.  Paying spectators.

In 2009, the general feeling is that if Tiger gets hit by a truck, the tour does too.  And it is Sunday-another Sunday– without him.  The grand re-entrance turned out to be pretty much of a dud.  A round two exit–played before a TV audience that works at a golf course or doesn’t have a job at all.

Listen to sports radio or the network sports news shows you get the impression that Tiger IS the Tour. And there is a certain amount of truth to that just because he’s been so damned good.  We haven’t seen a player dominate like he has since Jack Nicklaus.  Tiger, of course, is on pace to smash all of Jack’s records.

I also get the numbers.  TV ratings sink like a concrete Titleist when he’s not playing.   Fans don’t come to the second and third tier events when he sits out.  Yada, yada, yada.   It’s a twisted sort of tribute to Tiger, I guess, and sports need superstars.  Golf just needs a few more of them.

The Tour tries to sell the other players, I guess, but they need to do more.   As Tiger heads toward 40, chances are he’ll cut back the schedule even more.  He may not win as much if the knee becomes an off-again, on-again issue.  And someday–15 to 20 years from now or so–he’ll start thinking about quitting.  If the Champions Tour is still around, I can’t picture Tiger playing.

Then what?

Tiger is gone.  There will never be another.  What do you do?  Pack up the tent?

Look, there have always been people interested in watching golf in person and on TV.  The sport isn’t going away and the PGA Tour shouldn’t ebb and flow with every step Tiger takes or doesn’t take.  He’s a blast to watch.  But there are other players out there who need to be marketed–and who need to market themselves.   It shouldn’t be THAT hard.

Tiger isn’t really a personality.  People don’t hang on his every word.  They just like to watch him play.   Lee Trevino and Chi Chi Rodriguez didn’t outshine Jack and people still watched them.  Wanted to hear from them.  Rooted for them.   They knew they had to sell themselves and sell the sport.  I’m not sure guys today really get that.  Many come from button-down college programs where they’re so conditioned to use the time to put themselves in position to get a tour card that they forget–or never learn how–to entertain.  They’ll sign autographs.  They’ll do boring TV interviews–seldom revealing much of themselves.  For every Anthony Kim and Boo Weekley, there are ten other guys who could trade shirts and sponsors and no one would ever know.  Or care.

The Tour and the players have to get on board with the idea that it’s a league and they’re entertainers.  All for one.  One for all.  Try something different.   Get on a prime time TV reality show.  Do something crazy.

Just do something.

We’re not sure if Tiger Woods’ wife and kids are glad he’s finally getting out of the house and doing something on the weekends, but we know the TV networks and the PGA Tour are looking forward to his return at the Accenture match play event.  Tiger tees off Thursday morning after the eight-month recovery from knee surgery.

Golf Channel gets a big boost with its early round coverage.  Tiger faces Australian Brendan Jones in his first match and expectations are that ratings will be huge.  The network will air a 30-minute prime-time special about Woods on Tuesday and a 60 minute  show on Wednesday.  NBC takes over weekend coverage, giving it a huge lift as the season gets underway.

This week, Nike Golf (NYSE:NKE) kicks off a new commercial, “THE GOOD LIFE,” which celebrates the return of Tiger Woods to competition and highlights the winning performances of Nike Golf athletes in 2008. Woods has announced that he will compete in this week’s Accenture Match Play Championship.

“I think we are all looking forward to getting him back and seeing what kind of shape he’s in,” said Leonard, a 12-time winner on the PGA Tour. “You always want to compete against the best in the world out here and win.”

Radiating a fun, humorous, tongue in cheek tone, “THE GOOD LIFE” TV commercial features Nike athletes Woods, Stewart Cink, Trevor Immelman, Anthony Kim, Justin Leonard and Carl Petterssen.

“We had a great time shooting the spot together. We had a lot of laughs,” said Woods. “I’m now ready to play again.”

The ad will begin airing on Wednesday  through Sunday on ESPN, ESPN News and The Golf Channel. The Golf Channel will air it immediately preceding Tiger’s first tee shot in round one of the Accenture Match Play Championship. The campaign will also be featured on nikegolf.com

It’s died down a bit now, but the praise heaped upon golfer J.P. Hayes for essentially disqualifying himself for using a non-approved Titleist during the second round of a qualifier came from all corners.

It’s kind of sad that someone is complimented incessantly for simply upholding the rules of a very traditional game.  Hayes said so himself.  “It’s important for players to police themselves,” he told ESPN.  “We don’t have referees.”

If pros don’t police themselves, who will?  And Hayes does deserve plaudits for doing the right thing.  It would have been so easy to ignore the violation.  No one would have known.  The ball was a prototype and looked no different than any other golf ball in his bag.  But why did his caddy even have the ball in the bag to begin with?

Players and caddies both know that using such golf balls is a no-no during competition.  Hayes has been a touring pro for a long time.  Navigating his way through the qualifiers to earn a PGA tour card for 2009 was important to this 43 year-old from Wisconsin.  He’s got only a few years left to make a really good living on tour.  So why would an experienced player even put himself in a position to make such an error?

At least he knows now that he’s one of those guys who isn’t afraid to call a penalty on himself no matter what the consequences… or the stakes.

Tiger Woods is up and around, ready to say goodbye to a difficult last half of 2008 when his knee injury forced him off the course for the first time.

Tiger’s absence hurt the PGA Tour a little, but the anticipation surrounding his return should make up for it.  Woods has been busy doing some promotional work and he also sat down for a news conference where he addressed the injury and his future.

It’s not likely he’ll be 100% for a couple of years and it will be interesting to see if he has any trouble getting his torque back when he does tee it up for the first time.

In the meantime, he’s spending time…as a caddy? Yup. Tiger donned the vest as part of a Buick sweepstakes won by a shell-shocked man who got the services of the world’s best player.