Els uneasy over letter from America

AN angry Ernie Els yesterday hit out at the US Tour — just as he was being confirmed as winner of the European circuit’s Order of Merit for the second year in a row.

Els, who today begins his bid for a record-breaking sixth World Match Play title at Wentworth, is certain to top the money list again after fellow South African Retief Goosen said he is not playing next week's Madrid Open.

But the world number two is not ready to celebrate. Not only because he has a hard week ahead of him, but also because of the letter he received from PGA Tour headquarters in Florida last week.

Els will have played 15 events on both sides of the Atlantic after this week, yet while the European tour hierarchy is perfectly happy with that situation the powers-that-be in the States appear not to be.

They want him to show up more there and less elsewhere, but Els stormed: "They need to understand I think the golfing world has changed through the years. There's a world outside America and I'm part of it.

"They can't restrict me from playing where I want to play. They want over 20 and nothing abroad. It means if you want to go play in Dubai I've got to ask them for a release. And for that release I need to give them one extra tournament.

"Well, I don't want to go that far. It's been on my mind all year and after this letter we'll sit down and talk because they sent quite a strong letter to me.

"I am not hurting their tour at all with my schedule. I'm not hurting other players on their tour because none of them will do what I'm doing. So I'm not hurting anybody.

"I'm just helping the European tour. I'm playing all over the world.

"Why should I change? I've been doing this all my life. You can't start telling me, 'hey, come over here and leave the rest of the world'. It's not going to happen that way."

"I don't think it will go that far, hopefully. I want to play in the US and as far as I'm concerned I play enough for anybody to start asking me questions to play more.

"I live in the UK, Samantha (his five-year-old daughter) goes to school there. Sounds like I'm living here. Don't put a padlock around me because that's not going to work."

Els feels he is being singled out even though others like Goosen and Australian Adam Scott are in a similar position in playing worldwide.

The US Tour's standard minimum requirement is 15 events per season Europe's is 11 and Els has met that every year for the past decade. But he played 20 in 2000 and has been cutting back since.

First things first, though. Els badly wants another win under his belt. Not for the money because that long ago ceased to be the motivating force, but because he wants to be regarded among the all-time greats and setting a new Match Play record will help in that end.

Although world number one Vijay Singh is also chasing the £1m (1.45m) first prize golf's biggest this week, Els is the top seed because he is the defending champion.

It means he plays Scotland's Scott Drummond, at 118th in the world the rank outsider, while Singh takes on 86th-ranked Bernhard Langer.

Three more of the world's top 10 are present in Goosen, Canada's Mike Weir and Ireland's Padraig Harrington. With the field expanded from 12 to 16 there are no byes into the quarter- finals this year and they play Jeff Maggert, Thomas Levet and Chris Riley respectively.

Els relegated Tiger Woods to world number three with his victory in the American Express World Golf Championship at Mount Juliet two weeks ago, but a failure to reach Sunday's final will see them swap places again.

Woods is one of 13 stars to reject invitations to the championship Masters champion Phil Mickelson and Spain's Sergio Garcia are among the others and Harrington needed all 13 to pull out to be part of the battle for the title.

Although he is the leading European player in the world rankings he expected to miss out because most of the field come from a table based on performances in this year's majors.