Who cares? The PGA Tour, the sponsors, and the fans. Ratings are down 57% at the Accenture match-play this year without Tiger in the field. Weekend golf ratings were down 47% in 2008 when Tiger was out with an injury. Those are some big numbers. It would be as if half of the NBA fans stopped watching when Michael Jordan left the NBA in 1993 to play baseball.
Granted, the media kerfuffle over this over whole thing has been ridiculous overkill but it's pretty rare that one athlete is such a big part of his sport.