World Matchplay Champs

[McMw]

Is this tourney losing it's appeal???

Growing up watching golf, this was one of my fave tourneys to watch...some classic matches, esp Faldo vs Woosie, Faldo vs Lyle etc...


TGC.Com Article
WENTWORTH, England -- The world's top four golfers -- Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els -- have withdrawn from next month's $1.78 million World Match Play tournament.

Defending champion Els is recovering from knee surgery, while Woods, Singh and Mickelson joined Sergio Garcia, Chris DiMarco, Fred Couples and Davis Love in deciding not to play.

No Americans are in the field, which was finalized Tuesday.

First played 40 years ago, the Sept. 15-18 event at Wentworth has 16 players and will count on the European Tour and world rankings. Players are invited based on their finishes in the four majors, four designated European tournaments and the European Order of Merit rankings.

Eight Europeans are in the field; David Howell, Paul McGinley, Colin Montgomerie, Kenneth Ferrie, Luke Donald, Thomas Bjorn, Bernhard Langer and Jose Maria Olazabal.

Completing the field are Australians Steve Elkington, Mark Hensby and Geoff Ogilvy; South Africans Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman and Tim Clark; New Zealand's reigning U.S. Open champion Michael Campbell and Argentina's Angel Cabrera.

The draw for the first round, based on world rankings, is: Goosen vs. Ferrie; Montgomerie vs. Hensby; Campbell vs. Elkington; Clark vs. Ogilvy; Donald vs. Langer; Bjorn vs. Olazabal; Howell vs. McGinley and Cabrera vs. Immelman.

[markTHEblake]

Is this tourney losing it's appeal???

no - its just getting bigger every year - just check out giants who left in it.

Vegas, Damo, Iain, Gaz, Jarro, Tez, blake.

this is gunna be bigger than Ben Hur.

[jaster]

LOL

Mau - I agree mate, bloody money is killing the game when it comes to events like this. It is so disappointing to see it turning into a "Rest of the World who could be bothered turning up" Matchplay

Really makes you respect golfers like Ernie Els and Norman before him who give/gave support to all four corners of the globe and appeared to enjoy doing it

[Grunt]

The yanks are turning the PGA into the world series, they want their tour to be the be all, end all of golf and dont really care what it cost to others to get that result.
Remember how chastised Norman was when he proposed a proper World Tour! How good would it be to see every Tour get say 3 World tour events (maybe more for the European & US Tours) only open to say 64 top ranked players and they had to play in say 75% of them to be eligible for the Title of World Golf tour Champion. That would promote world golf wouldn't it.

I know it may be a horrible thing to say but the costs of this Hurricane Katrina thing might change Americas attitude to the rest of the world and how it sees it's place in it ,including golf.