"The secret to getting Tiger to play in an event, by the way, is to hire him."

Gary Van Sickle won't please Tiger with this SI.com column essentially outlining his playing schedule for the next few years:

The secret to getting Tiger to play in an event, by the way, is to hire him. Vickers never tumbled onto that fact or wasn't able to get it done. Woods explained his absence from the International, which he played twice and never returned, by saying he simply didn't like the golf course at Castle Rock, Colo.

The smartest operators were Buick, which signed Woods to an endorsement deal, with Tiger subsequently making the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines and the Buick Open in Grand Blanc, Mich., regular stops on his schedule while also also appearing at the Buick Classic at Westchester; and American Express, which guaranteed Tiger's presence in its World Golf Championship events by inking an endorsement deal.

Looking ahead, the fallout from Tiger's commitment to play regularly in the new Washington event means one less tournament he's going to play the rest of the year. Unless he's going to add to his schedule -- which seems unlikely -- adding a Tiger here means taking a Tiger away from somebody else.

And...

So let's do the math: that's four majors, a Players, two Buicks, three WGCs and possibly four FedEx Cups. That's 14 tournaments. He has won four times at Bay Hill and lives only a few miles from the course. That's 15, the Tour minimum, and the same number he played last year.