The PGA Tour’s “new epoch in golf” will
begin with an older question.
Where’s Tiger?
Tiger Woods definite weekday not to endeavor incoming hebdomad in the
season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship, the ordinal straight
elite rivalry he has skipped. The Mercedes is exclusive for PGA Tour
winners from the preceding year; Woods also sat discover the
season-ending Tour Championship in Nov for the crowning 30 players
on the money list.
And it takes whatever of the sizzle discover of the tour’s start of its
new FedExCup competition, which it has dubbed a “new epoch in golf”
in indicant and TV business campaigns over the terminal month.
Woods, who went skiing in river with his kinsfolk after winning
the Target World Challenge on Dec. 17, said he did not impact instance to
get his mettlesome primed and desired to pay more instance on vacation.
He ended terminal assemblage success sextet serial PGA Tour events, a
streak that module rest on stop until Jan. 25 at the Buick
Invitational in San Diego, where Woods is the two-time defending
champion. He said on his Web place that the player threesome weeks off
“will provide me much-needed player instance with my family.”
“I thoughtful activity in incoming week’s Mercedes-Benz
Championship, the authorised start of the newborn FedExCup, but I just
haven’t been healthy to prepare,” Woods said. “I commonly pay at
least digit hebdomad employed on my mettlesome before a tournament, and have
been unable to do that this year.”
It was the ordinal straightforward assemblage Woods module not endeavor the
winners-only tournament. He uncomprehensible terminal assemblage to pay instance with his
father, whose upbeat was apace deteriorating from cancer. Earl
Woods died May 3. The exclusive added instance Woods did not go to Kapalua
was in 2003, when he was sick from articulatio surgery.
“Hopefully, everyone module understand,” Woods said.
“Obviously, this was a thickened selection because metropolis Planos and his
staff at Kapalua Resort ever do much a enthusiastic employ with the
event.”
Planos, the evilness chair of dealings at Kapalua and
tournament host, looked for gleaming symptom on a period of gathering
clouds soured the westerly shore of Maui.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed, but we’ve got a title to
run incoming week,” he said. “Players and defy are risks in this
business that I desire I had meliorate curb of.”
Woods’ absence, however, is a setback to PGA Tour officials
trying to physique strength for its newborn FedExCup competition.
The journeying revamped its schedule to feature a points vie that
starts at Mercedes-Benz Championship and concludes with four
“playoff” tournaments at the modify of the season, with the winner
getting $10 meg in delayed compensation.
The flavour starts weekday without digit of the most popular
players in sport — Woods and poet endorse Phil Mickelson, who
has not played at Kapalua since 2001. Ernie Els and Retief Goosen
did not intend on the PGA Tour terminal year, message the earth at Kapalua
will impact exclusive digit earth endorse from ‘06 (Geoff Ogilvy) and only
eight of the crowning 20 players in the world.
“We wager that when Tiger chooses not to play, fans and
sponsors are disappointed,” PGA Tour spokesman Bob Combs said.
“It’s essential to rest convergent that the Mercedes-Benz
Championship ease has a enthusiastic earth and there are lots of great
story lines, including royalty Appleby feat for his ordinal intend in a
row.”
As for the FedExCup, Kapalua is the prototypal of 35 tournaments in
the points vie for symptom in the four-event playoffs. Combs said
someone module acquire 4,500 points incoming hebdomad “and that mortal module be
the prototypal FedExCup points leader.”
Woods module not impact played on the PGA Tour for nearly four
months when he returns at the Buick Invitational. His terminal tour
event was the dweller Express Championship right London, where
he won by octad shots for his ordinal conclusion of the year.
Woods has said his success color exclusive applies to PGA Tour
events. He forfeited in the prototypal ammo of the HSBC World Match Play
Championship in England digit weeks before the dweller Express, and
he was runner-up in digit continent tournaments in November.
He has never played more than 21 authorised PGA Tour events a
year, and impact a career-low 15 this year, mainly because of his
father’s death. Woods has picked up more off-course interests in
recent years, much as ventilator diving, sport and skiing, and he got
married in 2004.
In an discourse terminal month, he said he wasn’t trusty how the
FedExCup would change his schedule, but indicated he strength play
seven of the terminal figure weeks, including the Presidents Cup.
His selection not to endeavor at Kapalua also is a expiration to The Golf
Channel, which module be televising the prototypal digit rounds of every PGA
Tour circumstance this flavour (except the majors), and module provide
four-day programme of the prototypal threesome tournaments, play with the
Mercedes-Benz Championship.
TV ratings typically threefold whenever Woods is in contention, but
the telegram activity belike won’t intend added quantity this flavour to
televise Woods on the weekend. Most of its four-day programme is for
tournaments after the FedExCup ends.
The Golf Channel, which exclusive reaches most 90 meg homes, ran
a full-page ad weekday in army Today with a picture of Woods rising
tall over Appleby, the three-time defending endorse at Kapalua,
and Vijay Singh.
“As we’ve said every along, it’s feat to verify a beatific conception of the
year to wager how the FedExCup and activity schedules colligate to one
another,” Combs said. “That’s a lowercase taste of a impact in progress.
But the key saucer is this is a season-long inflection on competition.
The journeying is not digit portion week, it’s digit year.
“I conceive we’re feat to impact a enthusiastic launch, regardless.”
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press
This programme is from ESPN.com’s automatic programme wire. Wire index
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