/ 18 August 2007

No Tiger in Carolina, but rivals not surprised

Tiger Woods’s withdrawal from the first event of the PGA Tour’s new four-event play-off series didn’t surprise many of his rivals.

The FedEx Cup series, which will culminate with next month’s Tour Championship, was designed to bring all the tour’s top players together for four straight weeks.

But such a programme, sandwiched between the just-concluded PGA Championship and the Presidents Cup match-play event, makes for a gruelling schedule.

”I don’t blame the big-name players for not playing, and I don’t think Tiger likes the [Westchester] course,” said Australian Mark Hensby, who thinks the FedEx Cup has been way over-hyped by the tour. ”It’s a slap in the face in a way. You can’t expect guys to play six out of seven [weeks]. Someone like me would, but only because I have to.”

Hensby said the $10-million annuity awarded to the play-off series winner isn’t such a huge draw.

”If that $10-million was a truckload of cash, it would probably be different. But it’s deferred money going into a retirement account, so big deal,” he said. ”The whole FedEx Cup thing, they’re trying to build it up to be something it’s not. I don’t think most of the players think too much about it. Most of us are just trying to keep our jobs out here.”

Joe Ogilvie, a player director of the tour policy board, likened Woods’s absence from the first event, next week’s Barclays Classic in New York, to a bye for the top player.

”That way he doesn’t get any points the first week, and it’ll be pretty close towards the end,” Ogilvie said. ”It almost guarantees the Tour Championship is going to have a pretty big impact.

”In every play-off scenario, the best team gets a bye. I’m looking at it as he is the best player in the world, he is getting a bye. That bye is somewhat of a gamble in the sense that if one of the top four guys wins [next week], Tiger’s going to be pretty far behind the eight ball and it’s almost guaranteed he’s going to have to win [one of the final three events].” — Sapa-AFP