Yesterday, PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem had a pretty standard media address scheduled to introduce Waste Management as the new sponsor of the Phoenix event.  It's one of those things that comes along with an $5 to $8 million commitment to title sponsor a PGA Tour event.

Finchem, tournament presenter The Thunderbirds, and the WaMo CEO were all in the room to chat about the value proposition, etc.  Great.  Then it was opened up to questions.

Two questions for the WaMo CEO David Steiner.  Three to Finchem about drunk people and finding a sponsor for an event attended for the beer.  Then, a blatant segue into Tigerland.

The first question asked for any additional reaction that the Commissioner had about the reading.  He evaluated reaction to the event, saying, "We've had a lot of reaction. I think reaction generally is quite positive. There seems to be a feeling that we're now looking to the future."

While that could seriously be questioned, what Finchem said next was perhaps most telling.

"[His remarks] dealt with the issues that people wanted to see him deal with, in my view, but also I thought his statement set the bar for his performance going forward."

Tiger made mention of having more respect for the game when he returns, but also chose not to indicate when that return may be.  Finchem's insight that his remarks set the stage for performance upon his return, though, indicates that perhaps he sees the Woods copy as a bookend to the next stage of Tiger's career. 

Whether that means Woods will return soon was not in Finchem's analysis, but he clearly saw an indication about Woods' return.

As for Tiger's current whereabouts, Finchem could neither confirm nor deny Woods' presence in the area, but joked by saying, "Maybe he'll be spotted Saturday as one of the 150,000 people out here."