What price patriotism?
Only Padraig Harrington, 8th, and Luke Donald, 9th, of the world’s top 10 will compete in an event carrying $4 million (€3.002m) in prize money, with $1.4m (€1.05m) to be shared by the two members of the winning side.
This regrettable situation says a lot about golfers and the people who run the game at the highest level.
The decision of the World Golf Championship (WGC) committee to stage the event at this time of year suggests that they themselves have little interest in reviving the fortunes of a tournament that once commanded enormous prestige.
Not alone that, but from 2007 onwards until at least 2012, the three meaningful World Championships (the Accenture World Match Play, the Bridgestone World Series and the American Express) will all be staged on American soil.
This demonstrates how the American Tour is running the show, an ironical situation given their recent catastrophic performances in the Ryder Cup and the absence of any up and coming players to exist alongside the likes of Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson.
While many of the world’s finest, especially Americans, love to boast of their patriotism, there is very little sign of it when it comes to representing their country in the World Cup. They had to go a long way down their money list before finding a player, Stewart Cink, prepared to play and he in turn found a willing ally in JJ Henry.
Here in Ireland, there is never a problem in this regard, with Padraig Harrington glad to take part in spite of an exhausting end of season schedule, and Paul McGinley, as always, very proud to pull on the national shirt.
Harrington is suffering from fatigue after a long and demanding season and McGinley is still off his best if recent performances are a reliable indicator. Harrington and McGinley came out on top in 1997 at Kiawah Island and have represented Ireland since without repeating the feat. Having finished 3rd in the Nedbank Classic in Sun City, Harrington is now making his way to the Caribbean paradise via London. No doubt, the particular pleasures of private jet travel will ease some of the pain of another 10-hour journey to Barbados, but you can only wonder at Harrington’s state of health when it comes to teeing it up in Thursday’s first round.
Just look at his itinerary since victory in the Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews in early October. First place there was followed by a missed cut two weeks later in Majorca; then came 2nd place in the Volvo Masters at Valderrama and with it the European Tour order of merit title; a fortnight on, he tied for 6th in the HSBS World Classic in China and from there moved on to Japan and got the better of Tiger Woods in a play-off for the Dunlop Phoenix title; a week at home in Dublin was followed by a fine performance in Sun City, South Africa, where he finished 3rd.
So Padraig has won twice and come 2nd, 3rd and 5th in five of his last six outings, and by my reckoning banked something in the region of another €1m to go with his career earnings of €16.355 million by the end of the 2006 European season.
There has been an ongoing love affair between Ireland and the World Cup ever since Harry Bradshaw and Christy O’Connor Senior won the competition (then known as the Canada Cup) in Mexico City in 1958. Two years later, the tournament came to Portmarnock and, as if to prove just how much the event meant in the scheme of things at that time, it was won for the US by two legends of the game, Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer, with the great Gary Player the leading individual.
In contrast, very few of the world’s best are competing this week and so there has to be some hope of Harrington and McGinley emulating their win of 1997 no matter what negatives might apply to the Irish pair going into battle at Sandy Lane, the palatial property of Irish billionaires JPS McManus and Dermot Desmond.
England’s Luke Donald and David Howell are the highest ranked team in Barbados and even if the top Americans have decided to stay at home, Cink and Henry, two of their best players in the Ryder Cup in September, look a credible combination. Stephen Dodd and Bradley Dredge defend for Wales the title they captured over 36 holes in the Algarve last year while Colin Montgomerie returns for Scotland and is joined by the promising Marc Warren.
Henrik Stenson and Carl Pettersson (Sweden), Rory Sabbatini and Richard Sterne (South Africa), Thomas Bjorn and Soren Hansen (Denmark), Miguel-Angel Jimenez and Gonzalo Fernandez (Spain), Mark Hensby and John Senden (Australia), Mike Weir and Jim Rutledge (Canada), and Angel Cabrera and Andres Romero (Argentina) will also fancy their chances given the absence of so many top names.
Meanwhile, Harrington remains in 8th place in the world rankings after Sun City, his last counting tournament of 2006. But he’s far from finished for the year. After the World Cup, he still has next week’s Target World Challenge hosted by Tiger Woods at the Sherwood CC near Los Angeles. He finally gets home to start a seven-week break on December 22.
