Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson don’t realize what they’re missing.
The winners-only, $5.4 million Mercedes Championships will kick off the PGA Tour schedule this week at a revamped Kapalua Plantation Course without Woods, Mickelson and five other golfers ranked in the world top 10. Organizers of the eighth Mercedes played at Kapalua certainly lament the fact that No. 2 Vijay Singh, No. 6 Sergio Garcia and No. 7 Jim Furyk will be the only members of the current top 10 in the 28-man field, but the intrigue is still there for the biggest tournament this side of The Players Championship, the Tour Championship and the majors. Woods said he needed time off after a grueling 2005 that included several stops on the unofficial silly season that starts after the Tour Championship in November. Mickelson is skipping this event for the fifth consecutive time, seemingly because he doesn’t play well on the 7,263-yard Plantation Course. He came three weeks early in 2001 to get a feel for the course and still finished tied for 28th, 16 strokes behind Furyk’s winning effort. No. 5 Ernie Els gets an excused absence because he was injured for most of 2005 and didn’t get the PGA win required for attendance. Ditto for No. 8 Adam Scott, who won the Nissan Open, which did not count as an official title because rain shortened the tournament to 36 holes. Nos. 9 and 10, Colin Montgomerie and Chris DiMarco, both came close, but did not win an event, either. No. 4 Retief Goosen and No. 17 Padraig Harrington are both skipping the Mercedes, electing not to make the trip from South Africa and Ireland, respectively. All of that is understandable, but Woods and Mickelson are head-scratchers. Woods said he expects to start his season on Jan. 26 at the Buick Invitational. Is it a coincidence that Woods is sponsored by Buick and will not be driving in the Mercedes? Probably, considering he has been at six of the previous seven events on Maui, missing only the 2003 tournament due to offseason knee surgery. Excuses are in the eye of the beholder, but Woods’ explanation that he needs time off to recover is the bothersome part of all this. He finished in a tie for 14th in a 16-man field three weeks ago at the Target World Challenge, which he hosts annually in Thousand Oaks, Calif. “I haven’t had an offseason,’’ Woods told The Associated Press when he announced he would not be at Kapalua. “And I need one.’’ No doubt, golfers need an offseason, but why not take it during, you know, the offseason? Not that Woods, who turned 30 on Friday, or Mickelson need more exposure, but this event gets more coverage on The Golf Channel and ESPN than any except the “big six’’ mentioned above. TV coverage is a comment on the prestige of the event. The absence of Tiger and Lefty will instead leave that much more attention for other players. Bart Bryant, Jason Gore and Tim Petrovic, who all have Tin Cup stories, are in the field For Michael Campbell – the U.S. Open winner from New Zealand – the Mercedes will be one of only two PGA events on his schedule outside of the Players, World Golf Championships and majors. Two-time defending champion Stuart Appleby of Australia will be back, too. Next year could be a different story, even for as reluctant a tourist as Mickelson. The Tour took a page from the Nextel Cup and will use a season-long points system next year, with a 10-tournament chase for player of the year honors to end the season. Part of the reason for the change is to avoid players skipping out on events. Mickelson, for example, took a pass on the Tour Championship because he wanted to spend Halloween with his family. By the way, Halloween was the Monday before the Tour Championship started. Maybe those Lear jets just don’t fly as fast as they used to. Will a system that has done well in the down-home atmosphere of NASCAR work in the stodgy, upper-crust golf world? That definitely remains to be seen. The Tour has always had season-long races, however – on the money list, for berths in the Tour Championship and for the scoring title. The Mercedes shouldn’t need to offer any extra incentive. It always offers a stacked field, and now the Plantation Course has a new look after a $1 million, four-month renovation that included the replacement of all 18 greens. Bryant, who won two events last year – bringing his career total to three – put it best. “You know, everybody is real excited, all the players, other than maybe two of them,’’ he said. This event is hardly dependent on Woods and Mickelson – in 2003, Els put on a show for the ages when he finished a PGA Tour-record 31 strokes under par. The breathtaking scenery with whales breaching in the Pacific is enough for a lot of snow-bound Mainlanders to watch. Woods and Mickelson each played in 21 official events in 2005, including an epic duel at the Ford Championship in February. Whether they are tired, or don’t like the course or the model of car sponsoring an event should not be an excuse. Barring injury, this is a tournament that should be on their docket. Robert Collias can be reached at rcollias@mauinews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment