"Tiger Woods casting a shadow larger than ever"

The Honda Classic overnights have been finalized and the ratings were even higher, as The Forecaddie notes, with Golf Channel also scoring huge audience sizes for lead-in audiences compared to non-Tiger tour events. There were also some big wins for the golf against stiff competition. 

The early season boost delivered by Woods has prompted AP's Doug Ferguson to suggest, for now anyway, Tiger is actually bigger than ever.

Golf is in a different place than when Woods picked up his 79th victory on the PGA Tour in August 2013, his most recent victory. Thomas had just turned pro. Jordan Spieth had just earned a full PGA Tour card. Jon Rahm was going into his sophomore year at Arizona State. Since then, five players have taken turns at No. 1 in the world.

During his longest stretch out of golf with his bad back, the refrain was that golf needed Tiger Woods. When he was on the verge of returning at the end of 2016, the talk was that golf was in a good spot and Woods could only make it that much better.

For the first few tournaments of his return, it has become Woods and everyone else.