When Tiger Woods announced that he would return this week at the Accenture Match Play, the networks broadcasting the event - Golf Channel and NBC - went on a marketing barrage with the message that Tiger was back.

That was true for the Golf Channel, but due to Tim Clark's fantastic performance against Woods yesterday, that isn't true for NBC.

After showing commericals on their family of networks that Woods is back, they are figuring that they will have to deliver some kind of Tiger.

Hat tips to reader Diane vis a vis Geoff Shackelford for this from the LA Times:

Tiger Woods is out in the second round of the Accenture Match Play Championship, beaten Thursday by South Africa's Tim Clark. That means Woods won't be playing Saturday and Sunday during live network television coverage of the event, but he'll still be prominent on NBC.

"We'll have to deal with showing what happened to Tiger because this has gone from being a golf tournament to a news event," NBC golf producer Tommy Roy said. "Our weekend telecast will have to deal with showing what happened to Tiger. It will be our duty."

Duty?  No, the duty is to do what you are paying the PGA Tour for the right to do - broadcast the PGA Tour live on TV.  Frankly, I already know what happened to Tiger Woods.  So does everybody else on planet earth.  It has been jammed down our throats enough to know what happened.

With numbers like those that the Golf Channel saw, though, NBC must be thinking they are better off with Tiger highlites (or lowlites) than with the players still in the field.

Wednesday's first-round coverage of the match-play event resulted in the highest first-round ratings ever for the Golf Channel. Golf Channel President Page Thompson said the 1.8 rating was up 50% from the same round a year ago.

That was live, though, and the excitement of his first round back.  I think NBC took a gamble on Tiger being there for the weekend and it didn't pay off.