American stars turn back on Wentworth invite

JIM Furyk, Kenny Perry, Phil Mickelson, David Toms and Davis Love have all followed Tiger Woods in turning down the chance to win the £1million (€1.43m) first prize — the second biggest in golf – at the HSBC World Matchplay Championship at Wentworth in two weeks’ time.

American stars turn back on Wentworth invite

But their decision does at least mean while there are no British or Irish players taking part for the first time in the event's history, there are now three Europeans Thomas Bjorn, Fredrik Jacobson and Alex Cejka in the 12-man field.

Woods, guaranteed a spot as world number one, was the first to declare himself unavailable because he has a Tiger Woods Foundation kids' clinic the same weekend.

United States Open champion Furyk and Perry both qualified off the table compiled from this year's four majors, but told the organisers they were unable to compete "due to prior commitments."

Mickelson, Toms and Love finished 13th, 16th and 17th in that table, but when approached to step in as replacements, they said they were also "unable to release themselves from previous commitments."

Open runner-up Bjorn has come in for Woods, Jacobson (fifth in the US Open and sixth in The Open) takes Mickelson's place by virtue of being 15th in the table and Cejka, fourth in the US PGA championship last month, gets the opportunity despite finishing down in 18th place in the standings.

Top billing now goes to Ernie Els, who will be trying to match the records of Gary Player and Seve Ballesteros with his fifth victory in the tournament, and three of this year's major champions Masters winner Mike Weir, shock Open winner Ben Curtis and US PGA champion Shaun Micheel.

The others taking part are Fiji's Vijay Singh, Australian Stephen Leaney, South African Tim Clark and Americans Len Mattiace and Chad Campbell.

Bjorn has no sympathy for British and Irish golfers who have failed to meet the qualifying requirements.

"They just didn't do enough during the year," said the Dane, who gets in by virtue of his second-place finish in the Open at Royal St Georges.

Padraig Harrington is one of those who might have made it had he shown his usual kind of consistency. As a client of the promoting company IMG, he might have anticipated an invitation but the rules are different this year and they are being adhered to.

However, Harrington believes it might have been better to adopt a different criterion for qualification.

"I think they got it largely right but for themselves I think they should have kept two places back", he maintains. "Not to have a British player, a Monty, a Faldo, a Justin Rose, for spectators to watch seems odd.

"I think it's nice they have a clear cut qualifying system but maybe they should have taken eight players off the majors, two invites, last year's winner and the world number one.

"That would please everybody. At the end of the day, I wouldn't have been in so it's not something I'm worried about. I'm just saying they possibly should have kept a couple of invites, just like the Ryder Cup."

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