Tiger Woods honored in Australia

Still wearing his gold jacket from winning the Australian Masters, with his car waiting to take him to the airport, Tiger Woods had one more stop to make at Kingston Heath.

He stood atop a bench and looked out at some 250 volunteers who had gathered outside the tournament office to see him one last time. Woods thanked them for their support, saying his week would not have been as special without them.

In true Aussie fashion, one bloke wasn’t interested in a speech.

“What about those errant shots?” he interrupted as his fellow volunteers laughed along.

“You’re supposed to kick those back into the fairway,” Woods replied. “Make sure you learn that next time I’m here.”

That left everyone — volunteers in the parking lot, more than 100,000 fans who passed through the gates, tournament officials and anyone who caught a glimpse of the world’s No. 1 player — with a couple of nagging questions.

When exactly does Woods come back?

“I would love to,” he said on three occasions, without saying whether he would return to defend his title.

The only time Woods didn’t defend a title on the PGA Tour, except for being injured, was when the old BellSouth Classic changed its dates in 1999 to one week before the Masters. Woods never plays that week. International events, with their appearance money, are different. Woods twice did not return to defend a title — after the 1997 Asian Honda Classic and the 2000 Johnnie Walker Classic.

He received a $3 million appearance fee to play in Australia, half of that paid by the state government.

“I don’t think he’s expected to come back,” Ian Baker-Finch said. “But it would be great if he did to defend.”

The bigger question: What happens to golf in Australia when he doesn’t return?

For a country that produces more PGA Tour players than any other outside the United States, golf Down Under has been lagging over the last decade with a drop in sponsorship and interest. Not since Greg Norman was No. 1 in the world has there been the kind of buzz that took Kingston Heath hostage for a week.

“We had a massive spike,” said David Rollo, who runs tournament operations for IMG in Australia. “If we don’t have something that’s not 80 percent of this, we’ll have lost an opportunity.”

The appeal of Woods was alarming.