Saturday, March 31, 2001
Canadian Open orgranizers deny
rumor of Tiger appearance fee
By MICHAEL GRANGE
Toronto Globe and Mail / Scripps Howard News Service
If Tiger Woods wants to make any money at
the Bell Canadian Open this year, it will have to be the old-fashioned
way.
Tournament director Bill Paul shot down
a rumor that surfaced in the March 30 issue of Golf World Magazine
that Woods was seeking a $2-million appearance fee to return to
the event in September.
“There's no truth to it,'” Paul
said. “In any conversation I've ever had with him it's never
come up. Nor would it. It's ridiculous.'”
Bev Norwood, Woods spokesman with IMG in
Cleveland, echoed Paul's take in an e-mail message Thursday:
“It's an absurd statement without even
a shred of truth. Tiger receives so much attention that he is
also the subject of many rumors, some crazier than others, and
this one fits into that latter category — along with others
this year such as that he was about to start his own magazine,
that he was married, and that he was on a secret fishing trip
in Argentina.”
Paying appearance fees is illegal on the
PGA Tour, although they are allowed on the European PGA Tour.
Woods was rumored to have received $2-million
to play in the European PGA's Dubai Desert Classic, and recent
reports said that Woods may receive that much to play in the New
Zealand PGA championship next year.
The world's top-ranked golfer won his first
Canadian Open title at Glen Abbey last year with a dramatic 6-iron
out of a bunker to hold off a hard-charging Grant Waite.
Woods then promised the crowd and later
the media that he would defend his title in 2001 when the Open
returns to Royal Montreal Golf Club in Ile Bizard, Quebec. Woods
has missed only two cuts in his career, one of them at the Open
when it was last held at Royal Montreal in 1997.
Paul joked that if Woods was demanding an
appearance fee, he must have done some quick negotiating in the
few minutes that passed between Woods rolling in his winning putt
and him telling the massive gallery that he would defend his title
during the trophy presentation.
The item appeared in the respected golf
magazine's Local Rules section. Later on in the item it said the
rumor was false, citing the PGA Tour's rules against appearance
fees.
There are ways to reward players for coming
to events, however. There's a long-standing tradition at the Canadian
Open to pay a handful of players in the field for an exclusive
outing called Chairman's Day that takes place on the Tuesday before
the tournament starts.
Last year's outing at the National Golf
Club of Canada in Woodbridge, Ont., included the likes of Jesper
Parnevik, Sergio Garcia and Mike Weir. But Paul said the amount
the players earned for the day was well below the $100,000 and
more that marquee players can command for corporate outings.
“The amount they get paid doesn't have
an impact on the field at all,” Paul said. “The game
has changed. There is so much money available in purses and sponsorships
and other outings that the amount they get paid (for Chairman's
Day) is insignificant.”
(Distributed by Scripps Howard
News Service, http://www.shns.com.)
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