Missing stars dim Heritage showpiece

THE decision of many of Europe’s top players to withdraw from this week’s Seve Trophy at the Heritage course at Killenard, Co Laois, bodes no good for high-profile golfing events in this country.

Tommy Keane, who has done enormous good for the Portlaoise area and beyond, agreed to give a two-year commitment to staging the biennial clash of Britain & Ireland and the Continent of Europe at the Heritage.

The original signals were positive with Nick Faldo agreeing to captain B&I with the added benefit of gaining experience of such a role in the build-up to his leadership of the European Ryder Cup team at Valhalla next year.

Predictably, Seve Ballesteros, in whose honour the match is named and who co-designed the Heritage with Jeff Howes, skippers the continentals.

All that was needed was for the top players to row in behind them and Ireland would have yet another international contest to be proud of. However, signs that should have been apparent from the outset were destined to rob the occasion of much of its glamour.

Sergio Garcia may be the most enthusiastic of European Ryder Cup golfers, but when it has come to the Seve Trophy, Spanish allegiance is wafer thin.

Just as before, he was never going to play.

To be fair to Garcia, he wasn’t the only one for whom the Seve Trophy was a demand too many at a strategic point of the season. Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, first and second in the Quinn Direct British Masters at the weekend, made themselves unavailable with the latter getting married later this week.

In the coming weeks, a mountain of money will be played for on this side of the Atlantic alone. Next week’s Dunhill Links at St Andrews is followed by the HSBC World Match Play Championship at Wentworth with its world record winner’s prize of £1 million.

The 2007 season concludes with the Volvo Masters at Valderrama in November and this is where Open champion Pádraig Harrington enters the scenario. He has his sights set on retaining the European Tour’s order of merit title and figured he needed a rest after an exhausting schedule since winning the Open Championship. Being the good and loyal team man he is, Harrington would have liked to play in the Seve Trophy but something had to give if he was to achieve another of his season’s major goals. So he pulled out of the Heritage, pleading fatigue, and hopes to be refreshed for St Andrews (where he teams up again with J.P. McManus), Wentworth and Valderrama.

It has all left the respective captains short of some of their best talent and having to almost scrape the barrel to come up with credible “wild cards”.

While Thomas Bjorn wouldn’t like to be described in such disparaging terms, it might be more difficult for Mark Warren and Simon Dyson (Faldo’s choices) to make a case for their presence.

Nor could Faldo be expected to find an Irish player for his side given that the likes of Graeme McDowell, Damien McGrane, Peter Lawrie, Paul McGinley and Darren Clarke are nowhere in the order of merit. Harrington apart, we don’t have any professional golfer of great stature right now.

Without a home player involved, there is little reason to expect meaningful crowds for the event. The top players in the respective teams are Justin Rose, Paul Casey and Colin Montgomerie for B & I and Robert Karlsson, Miguel-Angel Jimenez and Mikko Ilonen for the continent.

If the crowds are poor, it’s something that won’t be lost on Fáilte Ireland, who have been supporting these international events for a long time, but whose interest appears to be easing since the Ryder Cup.

True, they have thrown their weight behind the 2011 Solheim Cup which, for the ladies, is placed on a pedestal similar to that of the Ryder Cup.

So far, the tourist board have continued to contribute to the Irish and European Open prize funds and, hopefully, will continue to do so. If not, those events might well find it impossible to retain their stature as two of the most prestigious in Europe.

Meanwhile, at Royal Montreal Golf Club, the oldest in North America having been founded in 1873, the United States and the Rest of the World do battle for the President’s Cup starting on Thursday. Two very strong teams under the captaincy of old sparring partners Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player go head to head and the certainty is for some tremendous match-play golf. And yet, you have to wonder whether, in the greater scheme of things, the President’s Cup means a whole lot more than the Seve Trophy.