Woods twice has gone to a major without having competed after a long layoff — nine weeks — and had mixed results. He missed the cut at Winged Foot for the 2006 U.S. Open after his father died, and he won the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines while playing on a shattered left knee that kept him out the rest of the year.

“It’s obviously great for golf that he’s back,” three-time major champion Padraig Harrington said. “It shows the commitment he has to his family. If he came back earlier, that would give him a better chance at Augusta. He would have been putting golf first. Putting his family first by not warming up for Augusta, it’s a good statement.”

Woods has been the biggest draw at the Masters since that watershed victory in 1997. That probably won’t compare to this year.

His world came crashing down Nov. 27 when he fled his house in the middle of the night, an incident still filled with questions that Woods might never answer: Where was he going? What caused him to hit the tree? What injuries sent him to the hospital? And how could the world’s most famous athlete keep secret so many affairs?

Woods lost three corporate sponsors — Accenture, AT&T and Gatorade — and became the butt of jokes nationally, from TV talk shows to Disney stage productions.

This will be the first time Woods has missed Bay Hill as a professional, the only regular PGA Tour event he has played every year. Palmer told The Golf Channel that Woods called to apologize for not being there.

“He sounded good. He had some zip in his voice,” Palmer said. “He knows what he wants to do with his life and the way he’s going to handle it, and I guess we’re going to give him that respect. I would think for Tiger it’s going to be tough. It’s going to be something that’s going to take him a little time to get used to.”

Palmer said Woods told him he didn’t feel his game “was up to speed to start playing this early.”