A once top-flight Tour event is now officially deceased

	Jack Vickers congratulates Dean Wilson, last year's winner of The International. Marc Feldman/WireImage.com

You may be shocked to learn that The International, a first-class stop with one of the loveliest courses on Tour in Castle Pines, is dead. Tournament founder Jack Vickers and PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem joined forces Thursday in Denver to make the announcement.

It was already known that The International's future was on shaky ground and that this year might be its last stop. The surprise at the news conference was that there will be no tournament this year, too. Some CSI investigator can provide the exact time of death later.

There is one obvious question and it sounds like a Monk-Columbo-Poirot style mystery: Who killed The International?

Let me round up the suspects for you.

• Tiger Woods. Golf's greatest player has wielded a double-edge sword through no fault of his own, only his incredible skill. Tiger has created enormous interest worldwide and raised the game to new levels ... when he plays. The problem is, any event (or tour) he doesn't play has paled in comparison and been minimized.

The Champions Tour, for instance, had a public presence in the 1990s until Woods came along and, coincidentally, the tour moved off ESPN. The LPGA, thanks to Annika Sorenstam and young stars such as Michelle Wie, Natalie Gulbis and Paula Creamer, is just now starting to get out from under the Tiger eclipse it suffered.

There are two kinds of PGA Tour events -- those that have Tiger in the field and those that don't. The ones falling by the wayside or being shifted into the fall schedule (and into likely irrelevance) are the ones Tiger doesn't play, which isn't a coincidence. See the Booz Allen Classic, 84 Lumber Classic and former Greater Hartford Open, for starters.

Woods played at Castle Pines in 1998 and had an incredible week. He blasted a 400-yard drive -- uh, in '98 that was still unthinkable, unlike now. He had a hole-in-one, eagled one par 4 and two par 5s, perhaps the first time anyone eagled a par 3, par 4 and par 5 in the same tournament. He finished fourth, returned the next year and finished 37th but has never been back.

It's a sad reality but without Tiger in the field, it's more difficult to convince the public and media that an event is significant, no matter how well an event is run. What's more important is that the sponsors, the ones forced to cough up the $8 million or so it costs to hold a tournament, aren't as willing to pay big money for an event that doesn't have Tiger and isn't going to get Tiger and, therefore, is seen as a lesser event. In ad-speak, it's not a good buy.