All of a sudden, what was supposed to be a thrilling first week of the 2016-17 PGA Tour season has turned into a dud. Tiger Woods withdrew from the Safeway Open on Monday after committing just last Friday. This is an odd move, and there is a lot going on with Tiger right now.

Most notably, he doesn't think his game is up to snuff to contend with the best players in the world. That's a fairly startling revelation for those of us who have been following Tiger for the last 20 years.

Here are six things you need to know about Tiger's WD and his future on the PGA Tour.

1. This means nothing long-term: The good news if you're a Woods fan is that this does not appear to be an injury-related move. It is not his glutes refusing to fire or his back acting up or his knee going awry. He is seemingly playing and playing often. The No. 1 long-term concern remains his body, and his body is apparently fine, according to both Woods and those close to him.

"My health is good, and I feel strong, but my game is vulnerable and not where it needs to be," wrote Woods on his website on Monday. He is also apparently playing Pebble Beach, which is great.

2. He's miles away from winning: The issue for Woods is that the closer he gets to playing, the farther he gets from winning. It has become pretty clear that, after committing to the Safeway Open just three days ago, Woods realized that he was running the risk of embarrassing himself with another 85 (or worse!) at the first PGA Tour event of the 2016-17 season.

The concerning part about this is that it seems more mental than physical. Heck, the last time we saw him he was dumping three straight shots in the water from 100 yards away. One-hundred yards! If that's not a sign of mental distress on the golf course, I'm not sure what is. Woods said on Monday his game feels "vulnerable" right now. That's a nice way of saying, "When I'm standing over a shot I'm not real sure where it's going."

The most disconcerting thing about Tiger Woods returning to golf and winning has suddenly become the part of his game he was always best at: mental acuity.

3. It may be the yips: The oddest bit of this entire charade is that Woods is not only skipping the Safeway Open this week but also the Turkish Airlines Open in early November. So on Friday, he felt good enough to play this week, but on Monday, he doesn't feel good enough to play in a month. This is a big concern and smells a little like when he took those two months off between the 2015 Phoenix Open and Masters after he was blading chips all over the place.

His pal, Notah Begay, hinted at that on Monday. "I was down there about 4-5 weeks ago in Jupiter, and the full swing and everything else looked great," Begay said on Monday. "The short irons looked great. But as we all know, it's not just a succession of full shots that are required on the PGA Tour. You have to have the feel shots, the in-between shots. And just not having had enough time to get the reps in prior to, would probably be my guess based upon my conversations with Tiger."

4. We won't see him until December: As for when he will reappear, that will apparently be in December at the Hero World Challenge, which his foundation hosts. This would have been a more sensible return all along as it is a more comfortable locale for him and a smaller, more manageable setting. Less of a circus. I'm not totally sure why this wasn't the pick from the very beginning.

5. He does not feel competitive: In retrospect, it is more surprising that he committed to the tournament to begin with than than deciding to ultimately pull out of it. Tiger has stated in 100 different ways that there's no point in playing a tournament if he can't win it. He went even farther than that on Monday. But here's what he said three years ago:

"For me, I always want to win," Woods told the Associated Press in 2013. "So if I can't win, why tee it up? That's just my own personal belief. And I know what it takes to prepare to win and what it takes to go out there and get the job done, and there's going to become a point in time where I just can't do it anymore. We all as athletes face that moment. I'm a ways from that moment in my sport, but when that day happens, I'll make a decision and that's it."

Compare that to what Woods wrote on his website Monday: "I knew I wasn't ready to compete against the best golfers in the world." Did you ever think you would hear Tiger Woods, of all people, say those words? He didn't even say "win," he just said "compete." His swing issues must be legitimately problematic if he's worried about simply "competing" in the Safeway Open.

6. Tiger will still be back: Woods ended his written statement on Monday with a vow. "This isn't what I wanted to happen, but I will continue to strive to be able to play tournament golf," Woods wrote. "I'm close, and I won't stop until I get there."

Call me delusional, but I don't really see this WD as that big of a setback. I was mentally prepared for Woods to not return until sometime well into 2017. The goal, I presume, was always just to be ready enough to play the 2017 Masters. He can still hit that marker.

The WD this week is a disappointment for folks going to the Safeway Open and those of us craving some late-year juice from the all-time juice provider, but it's a minuscule speed bump on the road to recovery for Big Cat. He will emerge at some point, and the last chapter of Woods' career still has a chance to be historically great.