Tiger Woods withdraws from the 2016 British Open

Tiger Woods has officially withdrawn from the 2016 Open Championship. The R&A made the release on Friday afternoon, confirming that the three-time Claret Jug winner had taken his name out of the field and would be replaced by alternate Marcus Fraser of Australia.

The announcement did not go down to the wire (as it had at the Masters this year) and it did not come via his own website, where he usually makes announcements about missing major championships, just like he did for last month’s U.S. Open. Instead, it just came in a quick and quiet release from the host R&A.

It’s no surprise that Woods will not be making the trip to Scotland and the potential of a completely lost year seems likely at this point. The PGA Championship comes just two weeks after the Open in this summer’s manic and condensed schedule around August’s Olympics in Rio.

Therefore, it’s difficult to see Tiger skipping the Open, but playing in Canada the next week to prep for the PGA, or just coming into the PGA cold two weeks later. It’s hard imagine such a quick pivot in his status, which means we’ll go through an eighth straight summer without Tiger winning a major.

If he does skip the PGA at Baltusrol in late July, it would mark the first year that Tiger has not played a single major in his career. Even with all the injuries in recent years, he’s still managed to at least put together two major starts. Tiger did not sound especially close to returning during a recent visit to the CBS broadcast booth at his Quicken Loans National event.

Those reports from the spring about how great he looked on the Medalist range and that he might tee it up at the Wells Fargo Championship or The Players were, in retrospect, quite mad. He’s not close, and he’s going to take his time -- a measure that, despite his continued attempts to keep everything ambiguous, probably means sitting out the entire season.

So, he’s out for the Open, and if he skips the PGA, that leaves three lower-tier August events opposite the Olympics and before the FedExCup gets started. Tiger is not going to qualify for the FedExCup, but maybe he takes a couple swings in one of those three events (Travelers, John Deere, Wyndham) preceding it just to get some competitive reps.

The more likely scenario is that Woods keeps it shut down through August, misses the the Playoffs again and perhaps plays a few events in the fall series. It’s all an educated guessing game but we do know for sure Tiger will not be a Royal Troon.