A temporary solution could be players agreeing to play for less. Maybe that not something they would campaign for, but most understand it beats an alternative of empty weeks on the schedule.

"For some reason if there was a need to take 5 to 10 percent off the purses I don't think that would be a big problem," said Charley Hoffman, who made $648,000 for finishing second to Kenny Perry at the FBR Open on Sunday. "The PGA Tour hasn't cut back and its sort of amazing that it hasn't."

As of now, the tour has no drastic measures in the works. According to executive vice president Ty Votaw, that's not a reflection of a lack of concern, but of so many questions remaining unanswered.

"We've looked at a number of ideas generated both internally and externally," Votaw said. "We've concluded that at this point it would be premature to shift resources around as a reaction to what some people might feel are only optics. But we continue to prepare to do things if things worsen and this is a long-term systemic malaise instead of just a cycle."

In the meantime, one of the tour's main talking points has been increased player participation. In the '80s and early '90s, Norman proclaimed that the season started at Doral. But when Woods came along, it was Torrey Pines that marked the unofficial start-up after the soft opening in Hawaii and at the Hope. Taking Tiger off any pairing sheet sucks most of the excitement and anticipation from an event anyway. But with Woods back in Orlando, and only recently allowing himself to go full bore on his knee, it's still up to Phil Mickelson, reigning Player of the Year Padraig Harrington and the sexy Colombian, Camilo Villegas, to fill the void.

In Mickelson's case, he hasn't come up big since Tiger headed for the exits last June at Torrey, but the tour needs him now more than ever.

"I'm not an economist," Mickelson said in a Tuesday news conference, wearing logos from KPMG and Callaway. "But this year, knowing our contracts are already in place, we haven't necessarily felt the effects. We haven't seen or felt the hardships on tour, per se."

It would also be nice if Mickelson's Ryder Cup partner, the electrifying Anthony Kim, showed his face more often. After a closing 67 at Kapalua that amounted to a back-door second-place finish, young A.K. pulled out of his hometown event, the Hope, with a bum shoulder, then missed the cut at FBR. Where is he this week? At home in the California desert, just on the other side of the mountains from San Diego, awaiting a plane ride Saturday night for back-to-back appearances in Malaysia and Australia.

Kim, 23, doesn't have the built-in excuse of kids getting older, which Mickelson took full advantage of last year. Phil played 21 events in the U.S., a couple overseas, and the Skins Game. That was enough.

"It's easy for guys to play every event every four years when we only had 27-28 events," Mickelson said. "And that's what a lot of older players did and are committed to doing. But we have some 40-odd events now, and it's just not as realistic."