PGA Tour Notebook: Woods sparks ticket sales for Frys.com Open

A quiet Fall Series event in the foothills of northern California has become quite a bit louder. Tiger Woods announced a month ago he would play in this week’s Frys.com Open, and tournament consultant Duke Butler said ticket sales are three times higher than a year ago.

Along with getting Woods, the field includes Ernie Els, two-time major champion Angel Cabrera and former British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen.

“We hope to have 15,000 people a day,” he said. “We have an agreement with the county of Santa Clara that we’d have a maximum paid crowd of 15,000 a day.”

With hotel rooms being snatched up, the tournament figures to have a much greater economic impact on San Martin, which is located just south of San Jose.

“Fry’s is popular in Santa Clara County right now,” Butler said.

GOING HOME: Charles Howell III made bogey on the final hole of the Tour Championship when a birdie would have put him into the playoff. In some respects, however, he already won just by being at East Lake.

The top 30 players who reach the Tour Championship get into the Masters, the most important tournament of the year for Howell because he grew up in Augusta.

It will be his first time back to the Masters since he missed the cut in 2008.

“It’s my favorite tournament,” Howell said. “It’s the one tournament I’ll watch if I’m not playing. And that tournament is not easy to get into.”

It hasn’t been easy for Howell the past few years, but he turned it around this year. He had three straight top-5s at the start of the summer, tied for fourth in Greensboro and was solid enough in the playoff events to be 26th out of the 30 players at the Tour Championship.

“If you’re not in the top 50 in the world golf ranking, this is the next best thing you can do,” Howell said.

DIVOTS: Bill Haas joined Bart Bryant in 2005 and Chad Campbell in 2003 as the only players to win the Tour Championship in their first try. Haas was the first player since Adam Scott in 2006 to make the Tour Championship his first win of the year. … The Tour Championship playoff was the 16th of the year on the PGA Tour, tying the record for most in a season with 1988 and 1991. Four tournaments are still on the schedule. … Dustin Johnson has extended his deal with TaylorMade-adidas Golf through 2015.

STAT OF THE WEEK: Bill Haas earned $14,088,637 this year in 26 starts, including his FedExCup bonus. His father, Jay Haas, earned $14,440,317 in 798 starts in his entire career.

FINAL WORD: “He won’t have to play any better than he did before to do any dominating. Twelve under at Pebble Beach wins by 15 next week. And it wins by 15 in 100 years.”—Geoff Ogilvy on Tiger Woods.