Sunday, July 30, 2000
Tiger, others not playing in
International
By Luke Decock
The Gazette
(KRT)
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The field for
The International is full of big names.
Unfortunately, there's only one name that
matters in golf.
And Tiger isn't coming.
Tiger won't be coming.
Not now, not ever, perhaps, unless The International
gets a new set of dates from the PGA Tour.
Tiger Woods made his decision official on
Friday, the deadline for entries. Tournament officials actually
held a press conference in Castle Rock to announce that fact,
a bit of drama they didn't extend for Jesper Parnevik or Hal Sutton
or Jim Furyk - all of whom are no-shows.
There are actually very few no-shows, with
almost every other PGA winner this season expected to play. But
there's only one no-show who matters, only one whose presence
tips a tournament's scale. Woods transforms a tournament from
Golf Channel fodder to an international media event on the scale
of a Cold War superpower summit.
The absence of, say, defending champion
David Toms, would not have a similar effect.
But The International might as well get
used to him and his ilk, instead of expecting Woods.
As long as the tournament is played two
weeks before the PGA Championship and two weeks after the British
Open - it's slot for 2000 and 2001 - The International will continue
to sit in the middle of a natural rest period for Woods.
The International used to be held the weekend
after the PGA Championship, but when the British Open was moved
back a week this year, the PGA had to move back a week as well.
The International was bumped forward in the resulting reshuffling.
The result was also the loss of Woods, who
generally plays only one tournament between majors. When he announced
he would play in the Buick Open on Aug. 10-13 - satisfying one
of his major sponsors - a few weeks ago, The International was
left with only one question: Is any field strong enough to survive
losing Woods?
He's played The International twice since
joining the tour in 1996, the past two seasons. His experience
last year was a mess. Worn down from a workaholic July, he came
to The International with a mild case of the flu and left feeling
even worse after missing the cut.
Experiences like that led him to be very
selective with the tournaments he's chosen to play this season.
He's turned down plenty of appearances. Friday's announcement
was just the latest.
The tournament will go on. They all do,
even when Woods isn't there. They just aren't like four days of
the Oscars.
The International's setting and unique modified
Stableford scoring system - not to mention a healthy $3.5 million
purse with $630,000 to the winner - ensures enough big names will
show up.
Ernie Els. David Duval. Justin Leonard.
Tom Lehman. Jose Maria Olazabal. Sergio Garcia. Vijay Singh. Phil
Mickelson. Nick Faldo. Greg Norman.
That's as strong - as famous - a field as
will be found in any non-major.
The John Deere Classic (first-round leader:
Paul Curry) would love to have just one of those marquee names.
The International would love to have just
one. A different one.
Tiger.
And he's not coming.
(c) 2000, The Gazette (Colorado
Springs, Colo.).
Visit GT Online, the World Wide Web site of The Gazette, at http://www.gazette.com
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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