There are a lot of differences between the PGA Tour and the 50-and-older Champions Tour. Asked what’s chief among them, Rocco Mediate didn’t hesitate.

“It’s quieter,” the affable Mediate said, stepping off the putting green at Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club on Wednesday afternoon, still in flip-flops.

“I like it noisy. I like more people.”

Mediate might just get his wish soon, perhaps as early as 2026.

Some guy named Tiger Woods turns 50 in December 2025, making him eligible for what used to be known as the Senior Tour, where the tolls on the body — a huge hindrance for Woods these days — aren’t quite as severe, with most tournaments three rounds instead of four, and players being allowed to take a cart, in pro-ams and in tournaments.

It’s unclear whether Woods is planning to play much on the Champions Tour — if at all — but the tour, itself, sure could use him to create more interest and draw more crowds, like it did back in its heydey in the 1980s and ’90s, when fans flocked to see the legends of the game like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Gary Player, “Chi Chi” Rodriguez and more.

Woods would figure to at least play the five Champions Tour majors, if healthy, and could pick a select few others. It’s worth noting that he was a regular at the old Buick Open here at Warwick Hills, where he won three times, including the last Buick Open, in 2009.

The Ally Challenge is being played this week for the seventh time, and it’s under contract through 2025, with an extension seemingly likely — into the era of Woods’ eligibility.

“I can’t wait,” said Mediate, 61, who has his own place in history with Woods, that epic U.S. Open battle at Torrey Pines in 2008. “What else are you gonna do? That’d be the only thing I’d say to him. If he’s healthy, he can still compete on the regular tour as long as he wants. But if he’s not, he can ride around in a cart out here, which he’ll do because it’s OK out here … and it’s competition, and it’s another era to break all the records.

“It’d be great to have him back, and he’ll have a ball. It’s all his buddies. It’s all his friends.”

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A couple of years ago, Mediate recalled, he was waiting out a rain delay in a pro-am with Steve Stricker, when they got to chatting. They wondered aloud that if the Champions Tour changed its age eligibility to 48, solely for the point of getting Woods out here now, would he play. Stricker texted Woods (Mediate doesn’t have his number, he noted), and Woods immediately responded, “No.” Why? “All the records,” Tiger texted, “start when you’re 50.”

So, clearly, Woods has thought about the prospects of playing one day on the Champions Tour, even if it’s not right when he turns 50. He still competes sparingly on the PGA Tour, mostly in the majors, as he holds out the long-shot hope of catching Nicklaus’ 18 major championships. Woods is at 15, his last the 2019 Masters.

And it’s not clear what majors he’d target on the Champions Tour, where Bernhard Langer has won a record 46 times, with 12 major titles. Woods certainly wouldn’t play enough to catch those numbers. Mediate figures he might play eight to 10 times a year. But that’d be plenty to pump more life and bucks into the Champions Tour, where the purses are certainly good, but would double if Woods came out, Mediate said.

The money wouldn’t matter to Woods, of course. He has enough to last him this lifetime and several more. But it would matter to his peers.

“It would mean a lot,” said Lake Orion’s Tom Gillis, 56, asked what Woods would mean to the Champions Tour. “He would definitely drive it, and it would go.

“It would give us some more interest.”

The Champions Tour got a little taste of what the buzz could be like back in 2020, when Phil Mickelson became eligible, and won his first Champions Tour start, and then his second. He won four Champions Tour tournaments before joining LIV Golf.

Injuries have severely limited Woods on the PGA Tour in recent years. The last four seasons, he’s played five, three, three and two tournaments. He hasn’t played 10 since 2018-19.

Woods said the biggest setback with injuries has been his ability to practice as much as he needs to not just to compete, but to contend. You still need to practice to contend on the Champions Tour, where the quality of golf is still very, very good.

“You’re playing against the same guys,” said Mediate, who won six times on the PGA Tour and has won four times on the Champions Tour. “The guys that kicked your ass on the regular tour, they kick your ass out here.

“Nothing’s changed.”

Except, of course, for perhaps the vibe. It’s much more chill out on the Champions Tour. It’s less Sunday afternoon of a major, and more weekday morning Nassaus with your buddies.

It’s also a bit like a college or high-school reunion, only every week.

That might appeal to Woods, Champions Tour players say.

“You get to live some of your past glories,” said Padraig Harrington, 52, who’s already won eight times on the Champions Tour, after winning six times on the PGA Tour (including two majors, among them, the 2008 PGA Championship at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township. “It’s fun out here.”

And, let’s be honest, the carts help. There are opportunities to use them on the PGA Tour, and in majors, but it requires an exemption, and while Woods would qualify — anyone who saw the photo of his stitched-up lower leg from last month’s U.S. Junior Amateur at Oakland Hills, where he was following son Charlie, can attest — he’s not interested in receiving any special treatment, no matter how deserved.

Woods has consistently said he’d never use a cart on the PGA Tour, as recently as 2022.

He has said he would use it where it’s allowed for everyone, namely, the Champions Tour, which is grand news for that tour and its players. A Woods arrival would mean more fan interest and thus more ticket sales and higher TV ratings, and thus more sponsorships, and, thus, bigger purses. It figures to be a similar ripple to what he brought to the PGA Tour all those decades ago, just on a slightly smaller scale.

As for Woods, there should be an appeal of the Champions Tour, too.

“You play in smaller fields, where you know everybody, for the most part, and the competition is really good,” said Stewart Cink, 51, who continues to play on the PGA Tour, where he’s won eight times, including a major at the 2009 British Open in a playoff over a then-member of the Champions Tour, Tom Watson. “But the whole environment is just a little bit less intense. It’s less taxing.

“The toll is a little bit less, and that’s what I would tell Tiger.”

Legends of yesteryear embraced the transition to the Champions Tour, including Nicklaus and Palmer, who won 10 times each, as well as Trevino, who won 29 times, Hale Irwin, who won 45 times (the record, before Langer passed him recently), and Rodriguez, who won 22 times. Fred Couples embraced it, too, and won 14 times on a tour where the toll on his body was much less severe; back issues have long plagued Couples.

Mickelson gave it a shot, until heading to LIV Golf. Els has taken a liking to it, now, as has Vijay Singh, who has won five times on the Champions Tour, including last year’s Ally. Even David Duval is making the occasional start. Most of Woods’ chief rivals from his prime are eligible for the Champions Tour, and competing on the Champions Tour.

Woods could be less than a year-and-half from joining them. The clock is ticking, they say on the Champions Tour, and that’s not usually a good thing. But it’s a good thing now.

“He’s just gonna want to do it to beat peoples’ ass and set records,” Mediate said. “I think he comes. I don’t think he’ll play 20 events.

“But I bet you he plays eight to 10, and that’s all we need.”