LOS ANGELES » Since joining the PGA Tour in 1996, Tiger Woods has been golf’s transcendent figure, credited with expanding the sport’s television audience, fan base, tournament purses and sponsorship deals. During the last six years, he has missed chunks of time because of personal travails and injuries, enabling the tour to test its preparedness for life after the gold rush.

Now Woods, 39, has taken another leave of absence with his game in shambles and his body on the mend, and the end of his long, lucrative run feels nearer than ever.

The Tour, a multibillion-dollar industry, does not lack accomplished players and colorful characters. But for all the skill and social media savvy of players like Rory McIlroy and Bubba Watson, can they captivate as many people as Woods, who raised the level of athleticism in the game while remaking a sport known for its mostly white country-club composition?

Appraising the tour’s post-Woods fortunes while he takes his third sabbatical in less than a year is like reading a tricky putt: There is no consensus.

Bob Dorfman, the executive creative director of Baker Street Advertising, sees tough times ahead after Woods and his competitive foil, Phil Mickelson, 44, are no longer regulars on the PGA Tour.

"The majors will always be major and get a decent following because they’re always fascinating," Dorfman said. "It’s the other tournaments that are going to suffer a lot more without having a Tiger Woods playing on the weekend."

Dorfman added, "The game definitely needs more rising stars in the Tiger and Phil mold to bring in the casual fan and grow the game’s popularity."

The top-ranked McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, is scheduled to play his first U.S. tournament of the season this week at the Honda Classic, two weeks after Woods announced an indefinite break, saying his play was "not acceptable for tournament golf."

McIlroy, 25, has won four major titles, some in routs similar to those early in Woods’ career. Coming off his finest season, McIlroy can complete a career Grand Slam with a victory at the Masters in April.

Like his idol, Woods, he is a workout enthusiast whose physique is maximized by his Nike apparel and equipment. He has a twinkle in his eye, a strut to his step, a howitzer for a driver and 2.3 million Twitter followers.

McIlroy’s candor on social media and in news conferences is central to his charm, but on occasion it can alarm. Last month, on Twitter, he posted support for Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, known for not directly answering journalists’ questions. After Lynch met with reporters and responded to every inquiry by saying, "I’m thankful," McIlroy posted: "Love this! Paid to play not answer questions."

McIlroy is in the vanguard of a generation of players in their 20s who were drawn to the game after falling under Woods’ spell. The new wave of golfers, all of whom have risen to the fore as Woods’ game has ebbed, includes Jordan Spieth, Patrick Reed and Rickie Fowler of the United States; Jason Day of Australia; Hideki Matsuyama of Japan; Victor Dubuisson of France; and Sang-moon Bae and Seung-yul Noh of South Korea.

The deep pool of young talent was a factor in Fox Sports’ decision to dive into golf. In 2013, the network signed a 12-year, $1.2 billion contract with the U.S. Golf Association to televise the organization’s championships, including the U.S. Open, beginning in 2015. As a nontraditional golf outlet, Fox believes it is well suited to capture the interest of the nontraditional golf fan.

"When we were negotiating the contract, it had been five years since Tiger won the U.S. Open," Mark Loomis, Fox’s coordinating producer for golf, said, referring to Woods’ last major victory, in 2008. "The good thing about what Tiger has done is there’s been a real influx of young, talented golfers. Our job is to make sure the public is interested in the next wave of players and becomes invested in their stories."

Sponsors are investing, too. Nike signed McIlroy to a deal said to be worth $200 million in 2013. Under Armour, a relative newcomer in the golf apparel business, signed Spieth, a 21-year-old Texan currently ranked No. 9, shortly after he turned pro in 2013, and gave him a 10-year extension last month.

The game is more global than when Woods turned pro and joined a tour that counted 26 non-Americans among its 200 card-carrying members. In last week’s world rankings, 26 of the top 49 players were from outside the United States, including McIlroy and No. 2 Henrik Stenson of Sweden.

Next year, golf will make its modern Olympic debut in the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, introducing the game to a whole different audience.

Loomis likened the climate in golf to the NBA scene in the late 1990s, when Michael Jordan’s career was winding down. The league was becoming more of a melting pot, thanks to the game’s growth abroad in the years after NBA stars began gracing the Olympics.

"I remember a long time ago, when people wondered whether a post-Jordan NBA was worth investing in," Loomis said. "Here we are, 16 years later, and the NBA is thriving."

The Northern Trust Open took place in Los Angeles last week without Woods. He has not played in the tournament, which awarded him his first PGA Tour sponsor’s exemption, when he was 16, since 2006.

Also absent was Al Moore, a law professor at UCLA who belongs to Riviera, the host club.

"If Tiger’s not in the tournament, I don’t watch it," Moore said. "It’s not that I dislike any of the other players. I’m just indifferent to them."

When Woods is done, Moore said, golf’s popularity will return to its pre-Woods levels, a phenomenon he described as a regression toward the mean.

"There are hard-core golfers who will watch any golf," Moore said. "They are enamored of great players, and they don’t care where they come from."

He added: "What Tiger did was bring in people who didn’t necessarily know how to play the game. When that goes away, you’ll go back to a fan base of hard-core golfers, unless Rory can bring in the nongolfing fan."

McIlroy moves the needle, just not the one that records seismic activity.

According to CBS, McIlroy’s victory at the World Golf Championships event in Akron, Ohio, last summer, which coincided with the opening of the NFL exhibition season, was the highest-rated nonmajor golf telecast on the network in 2014. The final round of last year’s PGA Championship, which ended with a McIlroy victory over Mickelson, produced the event’s best ratings, the network said, since Y.E. Yang’s come-from-behind victory over Woods in 2009.

NBC reported that the weekend viewership of the season-ending Tour Championship was higher in 2014, when Woods was not in the field, than in 2013, when he was.

Golf viewership often fell drastically — by at least 25 percent — when Woods did not compete in his prime years, from 1999 and 2006, when he averaged six victories a season.

His 18-month victory drought in official events notwithstanding, Woods has won 26 percent of his starts on the tour as a pro. Jack Nicklaus, the 18-time major winner whose records Woods has been chasing, was victorious in 12.7 percent of his starts.

Woods’ dominance set him apart from the game’s other stars. Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist who teaches at Smith College, noted that transcendent athletes shared one trait.

"They push our sense of the boundaries of human potential," he said, adding: "The thing about Tiger’s greatness was he hit the ball far and he had the complete game. He was the complete package."

That package is showing signs of falling apart, and still, said Ty Votaw, the PGA Tour’s chief marketing officer, the Tour was able to recently extend its television contracts with CBS and NBC and re-enlist title sponsors of tournaments that are rarely, if ever, graced by Woods.

"In our view, it’s self-evident that our future is bright," Votaw said.

The camp of optimists also includes Sergio Garcma, 35, who has had a sometimes contentious relationship with Woods.

"I think at the end of the day, the game is bigger than any of us," he said. "And at some point, there will be no Tiger. There will be no Mickelson. There will be no Sergio Garcma. There will be no Rory McIlroy, but more people will come out. At the end of the day, the game will still be there."

Karen Crouse, New York Times

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