At 2:35pm EDT, Tiger Woods announced via his Twitter account that he will not be playing in the U.S. Open at Congressional this year.

His tweet stated, "Not playing in US Open. Very disappointed. Short-term frustration for long-term gain."

Woods has missed 3 of the last 12 majors due to injury. In 2008, he won the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines (his last major win) with a torn ligament and stress fractures in his left knee. This will certainly jog your memory.

Get ready for the national media to start piling on Woods, questioning if he'll ever be the same or if there's any chance he could possibly catch Jack Nicklaus' record 18 major wins at this point. I won't go as far as to predict either, as you'll be inundated with such columns in the next 24 hours that your head might explode.

The simple fact is that when Tiger isn't in a golf major, the PGA Tour suffers. A lot of ground has been made over the past two years in getting other golfers - both young and foreign - to fill the gap Tiger has left. So far, the results have been pretty good and the tournaments have been nothing short of, at the very least, incredibly watchable.

However, there's no question that having Woods in a major boosts ratings and interest in the tournament. It's a big loss for the U.S. Open this year, but if Woods was able to win the tournament with a demolished knee, there's no question this injury must be very significant and worse than we all thought.