Concern over match play date

The 2006 HSBC World Match Play championship will be staged the week before the Ryder Cup – despite objections from leading players.

Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn voiced his concerns about such a move ahead of this year’s event at Wentworth, where US Open champion Michael Campbell claimed the £1m (€1.46m) first prize – the richest in golf.

“I’ve heard talk about it going the week before the Ryder Cup. If it did I think it would limit the field,” said Bjorn, runner-up to Ernie Els in 2003.

“I don’t think you would want Padraig Harrington and Tiger Woods playing a 36-hole final before the Ryder Cup.

“This is the most tiring event you could ever play, that’s for sure. When I lost to Ernie I was really tired – it was hard to get going that morning and when I woke up I was four down.”

Els had a first-round bye that week, but from 2004 the event was expanded from 12 to 16 players, meaning whoever wins the title will have played two rounds a day for four days in a row.

Just five days later the Ryder Cup gets under way at The K Club outside Dublin with Europe looking to retain the trophy won in record-breaking fashio in Detroit last year.

Organisers will no doubt be hoping the proximity of the Ryder Cup will encourage world number one Tiger Woods and other top American players to play at Wentworth.

Not a single American took part this year with Woods, Phil Mickelson, Fred Couples, Davis Love and Chris DiMarco turning down invitations, as did Sergio Garcia and Vijay Singh.