Golf Capsules: McIlroy and McDowell going different paths
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Rory McIlroy have decided to concentrate on the European Tour next year instead of taking up membership in America.
The demise of the PGA Tour? Not quite.
"The PGA Tour won't miss me," McIlroy said. "Because no one player is bigger than the tour. I don't think it'll miss Lee Westwood. It won't miss Martin Kaymer. You've got so many good players over here. And it's not as if we're not going to be playing in this country."
The 2010 season begins to wind down Thursday with the Chevron World Challenge, which features an 18-man field led by tournament host Tiger Woods and defending champion Jim Furyk.
This has been a golden year for Europe, summed up best in a recent photo from the Dubai World Championship. European Tour chief executive George O'Grady posed with the Ryder Cup, alongside European Tour members Graeme McDowell with the U.S. Open trophy, Kaymer and his PGA Championship trophy and Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa and the claret jug he won at St. Andrews.
Also in the photo was Westwood, the new No. 1 player in the world ranking.
The perception of a European-American battle beyond the Ryder Cup has been taking shape in recent months, especially when Westwood said he was sticking to his home tour, McIlroy finished a PGA Tour season and decided that was enough for now, and Kaymer decided he was not ready to come to America full-time.
McIlroy attributed that to the media.
"I don't think it's anything else," he said. "I'm not joining the PGA Tour to make a statement, or Lee Westwood is not. It just doesn't fit. It just doesn't work. But that's not to say — I'm 21 years old — that I'm going to never be a member of the PGA Tour again. The whole membership thing, there's been too big a deal made of it.
"It doesn't matter where you play," he said. "You just want to play good golf."
McDowell and Oosthuizen were among those who decided to take up PGA Tour membership, along with Charl Schwartzel of South Africa. That means they will have to play at least 15 tournaments, which is not much considering the four majors, three World Golf Championships and The Players Championships count toward that minimum number.
McDowell played college golf in America (Alabama-Birmingham) and has a home in Orlando, Fla.
"Perhaps I'm a little bit more U.S.-based than some of the guys would be," he said. "But when I look at my schedule for next season, there's very little changes. I'm only going to pick up maybe two to three more events between January and August here in the States. It's really not a hugely difference schedule."
The difference is the FedEx Cup playoffs, a series of four tournaments in a five-week stretch that feature some of the strongest fields of the year. It concludes with the Tour Championship, and the winner gets $10 million from the $35 million in bonus money.
That kind of money isn't available in Europe. But for some Europeans, there's more to golf than money.
One reason Westwood stopped playing so much in America was that August and September — playoff time — is when he prefers to spend time at home with his family. McIlroy found that he pours so much into the major championship season through August that he's ready for a break. Instead, the FedEx Cup requires players to compete six times in a span of eight weeks.
"I love playing over here," McIlroy said. "It's just the time of the year that the playoffs are on over here. How can I put this? It's not as if I wanted to be playing golf over in Europe, I just didn't want to be playing golf at all."
If that's true for others, then it could lead to an interesting trend — the FedEx Cup might be keeping Europeans away.
"Us in the top 50 in the world, we get so much access to come across here and play in the best events anyway," McDowell said. "The only reason to take your tour card is to be part of the tour and play the FedEx Cup playoffs and be part of the money events."
McIlroy figures he'll at least have a better chance at winning the European Tour money title.
A year ago, Adam Scott talked about reducing his European Tour schedule to give himself a better shot at the FedEx Cup. He reasoned that by playing both tours, he was at a disadvantage by playing fewer tournaments in America compared with Woods, Furyk, Steve Stricker and Phil Mickelson, and fewer events in Europe compared with Westwood, McDowell and Kaymer.
All of them are such good players that it was hard to give that kind of a head start.
"I think if you play both tours, it's very difficult to put yourself in the frame to win one of them," McIlroy said. "I think you should either concentrate on one or the other. I finished 13th in the Race to Dubai this year and finished 36th in the FedEx Cup. I didn't really have a chance to win either of them."
LPGA
Top honors at stake in LPGA Tour Championship
There are razor-thin margins that could decide player of the year honors and the top spot in the world rankings, adding plenty of intrigue to the tournament that begins Thursday at Grand Cypress Golf Club.
For the first time in a decade, Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam won't win player of the year. That leaves five in the field with an opportunity to take home the LPGA's top honor.
"We have got big pressure," said Jiyai Shin, who begins play with the top spot.
Shin also has a little added pressure. Shin and Na Yeon Choi have a chance to be the first Koreans to win player of the year. They've also noticed more Korean media than usual this week lining the fairways and greens for every practice stroke, and interview requests back home are at an all-time high.
"It will be my dream come true if I get the award," Choi said.
Cristie Kerr could become the first American since Beth Daniel in 1994 to claim the award. Yani Tseng would be the first from Taiwan, and Ai Miyazato of Japan is also in contention.
Miyazato, however, can't finish No. 1 in the world rankings, but Suzann Pettersen, who doesn't have enough points to win player of the year, can move into the top spot with a victory.
All this is the result of the sport's top two players in retirement.
Since Ochoa bid farewell to the tour in May, the top spot has shuffled nine times among three players — Shin, Kerr and Miyazato. None of the players in contention could ever remember the three biggest awards — which also includes the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average — at stake so late in the season, much less the finale.
"It is exciting to have the chance, because in years past, it's been pretty much over by the half-year mark," Kerr said.
The tournament also marks the LPGA's first in the Sunshine State since 2008.
Based in Daytona Beach, the LPGA had as many as three Florida events at one time before then but was without one last year. That came as a surprise to some players given the popularity of golf and the nearly year-round warm weather in Florida.
And with dozens of players doubling as central Florida residents, it's an added incentive to end the year at home.
"We feel we belong with a tournament here," said Paula Creamer, who lives in the Isleworth community only a few miles away. "It's just kind of crazy that we haven't had one for a while."
The LPGA Tour Championship will keep the format it used last season, cutting to the lowest 70 scores and ties after 36 holes and an additional cut after 54 holes to the lowest 30 players and ties. That makes the margin for error even slimmer.
Especially at the top.
The format makes a big final-day push almost impossible, because to even make it to Sunday players will have to be in close contention. Of course, the five up for player of the year know plenty about winning.
They have combined to win 14 of the 25 events this year, including three of the four majors. Tseng won the Kraft Nabisco Championship and the Women's British Open, and Kerr took home the LPGA Championship.
As exciting as those others victories were, all five admitted that player of the year honors would top everything.
"For me, player of the year is kind of it," Kerr said. "It's what you see happening every year, what you wish would happen to you. And I think it's the yearlong culmination of you're the best player, this is what it was, these are the points, this is a point toward the Hall of Fame.
"It's something like winning a major championship and having that trophy in your house and seeing it going, 'That's something nobody can ever take away from you.'"
-- Antonio Gonzalez
Tour to change gender requirement
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — LPGA players have voted to allow transgender players to compete on tour in response to a lawsuit filed by a California woman who had her sex changed five years ago.
The players voted to remove the "female at birth" requirement from the tour's constitution at a year-end meeting at the LPGA Tour Championship, commissioner Michael Whan said. He said steps will be taken in the coming weeks to make the change.
Lana Lawless, a former police officer who had the sex change operation, filed the federal lawsuit in San Francisco in October claiming the "female at birth" requirement violated California's civil rights law. The 57-year-old Lawless wanted to prevent the LPGA from conducting tournaments in the state until it changed its policy and was seeking unspecified damages.
Lawless also sued three tour sponsors and the Long Drivers of America, which followed the LPGA policy. Lawless won the annual women's long-drive golf championship in 2008 with a 254-yard drive, but was barred from competing this year after organizers adopted the LPGA's gender rules.
"I think it is a major civil rights victory," Christopher Dolan, an attorney for Lawless, told The Associated Press in a phone interview Wednesday. "We are pleased that the LPGA has voted to end this archaic and outdated policy."
Dolan cautioned that the final changes are not expected for a couple weeks. But he was optimistic the LPGA's amended policy would allow complete access for transgenders.
"You can vote to end nuclear proliferation, but if you're still pointing the weapons, all you have is a vote," Dolan said.
He added there were no immediate plans to drop the lawsuit, especially with Long Drivers of America offering no immediate changes to the policy, but that the lawsuit could be amended before a January hearing.
Players competing this week in Orlando were mostly satisfied with the change.
"We don't need to comment on this because it's a dead issue," Cristie Kerr said. "She can compete if she can qualify. We certainly don't want to discriminate against anybody, that's not what the LPGA is about. And if she can qualify, she'll be able to play. We're like, the last sports organization to do it, it's just we've never really had to look at it before.
Others who were asked about the vote said they didn't think a transgender player would be an issue should one qualify to play on tour.
"There's really nothing to say," Suzann Pettersen said. "When an organization like the (International Olympic Committee) decides to accept those changes, there's no reason for the LPGA not to. So for my point of view, it was the natural way to go."
-- Antonio Gonzalez
Sunshine Tour
Westwood still trying to win at Sun City
SUN CITY, South Africa (AP) — It was the first golf tournament ever to offer prize money of $1 million, with half of that going to the winner.
Nearly three decades after American Johnny Miller walked away with that winner's check in 1981, the Sun City casino resort in South Africa's North West province continues to attract the stars of world golf — and offer one of the sport's biggest prizes.
It was the Sun City Million Dollar Challenge when Miller won the inaugural event. Now the Nedbank Golf Challenge, the 30th edition of the invitational tournament has drawn top-ranked Lee Westwood among the 12 players competing for the hefty $1.25 million first prize. Only The Players Championship, the majors and the World Golf Championships have a bigger top paycheck.
The total purse up for grabs at Gary Player Country Club is $5 million, and even the man who finishes last will take home a handy $250,000.
It is "Africa's major" and enjoys huge popularity with South African golf fans.
"I'd love to win here. It's somewhere I've always enjoyed coming to," Westwood said Wednesday. "It's a great tournament. I think '98 was my first year, I enjoyed it then and I enjoy it now. ... I missed it last year when I didn't play."
Westwood, who came close to winning in Sun City when he lost a playoff to Ernie Els in 2000, leads a Europe-heavy cast that includes Padraig Harrington, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Ross Fisher and Edoardo Molinari — all Ryder Cup winners — and South African-born Englishman Justin Rose.
Westwood will be the focus, however, and he's quickly adjusted to his new leading role after ending Tiger Woods' record 281-week stay at the top of the world rankings.
"There's no pressure, really," said the 37-year-old Englishman, smiling. "Being No. 1 in the world comes as a consequence of playing well. So if you think playing well is going to create more pressure, then you are probably doing the wrong job.
"That's why I go out and practice on the range at home when it's freezing cold and you could stay inside. That's why I work hard and have done for the last 17 years."
While Westwood chases his first win in Sun City, and a first tournament victory since assuming the top ranking, home fans will cheer for four South Africans — three of them major champions — when the tournament tees off Thursday.
Three-time Nedbank Challenge winner Els, 2004 champion Retief Goosen, British Open champ Louis Oosthuizen, and Tim Clark carry home hopes. Oosthuizen is making his long-awaited debut at the Nedbank.
"I've been watching it probably since I was 11," Oosthuizen said. "You always picture yourself one day there but you never think you are going to make it. ... It's something special, just playing this week, and I'd like to put on a good show. I'm looking forward to it."
While Oosthuizen makes his first appearance, Els is playing for the 17th time at Sun City.
"The Big Easy" has made more than $7.9 million from the Nedbank alone, and is easily the tournament's most successful player. Having enjoyed a quiet time recently, he said a new putter and a familiar old event, where he last appeared in 2007, could help complete a return to form that began with victory at the Grand Slam of Golf.
"I've really missed the place so I hope to play well," Els said. "My game's there. My game's really not that far off. I just want to get all the pieces together.
"I feel like I'm on the right track, it's just a matter of time."
Els, Nick Price and David Frost have all won the tournament three times. No one has ever won it four times.
Completing the lineup in the event sanctioned by South Africa's Sunshine Tour are Australia's Robert Allenby, the defending champion, and Denmark's Anders Hansen, who won the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit last season.
-- Gerald Imray
Elsewhere
Match Play to be decided by 18 holes
MARANA, Ariz. (AP) — The Match Play Championship will now be decided in an 18-hole championship match that the PGA Tour hopes will make for better television.
PGA Tour spokesman Ty Votaw said the policy board approved the change last week, although it remains subject to TV approval. NBC Sports televises the weekend of the Match Play Championship.
Under the change, the eight quarterfinal matches will be Saturday, with 18-hole semifinal matches Sunday morning, followed by the championship match. Previously, the championship match was 36 holes.
Only twice in 12 years of the tournament has the player leading after 18 holes failed to win — Davis Love III in 2004 against Tiger Woods, and Andrew Magee in 1999 against Jeff Maggert. Two other championship matches were tied after 18 holes.
Waldman opens with a 68
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The caddie for Camilo Villegas is off to a good start in his bid to join his boss on the PGA Tour.
Brett Waldman holed a bunker shot for eagle on his first hole and finished with a 3-under 68 at Orange County National on Wednesday in the first of six rounds of PGA Tour qualifying.
Kyle Stanley had a 7-under 65 on the Crooked Cat course for a two-shot lead over Scott Weatherly, Ben Martin and Stanford graduate Joseph Bramlett.
Waldman has not been in Q-school in eight years, but decided to give it a try this year. He is among nine players in the final stage to have made it through three stages.
The top 25 players earn PGA Tour cards for 2011. The next 50 are exempt on the Nationwide Tour.
