Woods withdrawal divides opinion

Tiger Woods‘ withdrawal from next week‘s opening tournament in the FedEx Cup series has met with a mixed reaction.

The new four-event play-off series was supposed to bring the PGA Tour‘s top players together for a month but Woods will miss The Barclays after deciding to take a break.

Mark Hensby believes the tour should never have expected him to play the event, which gets under way at Westchester Country Club in suburban New York on Thursday.

“I don’t blame the big-name players for not playing and I don’t think Tiger likes the course,” said Hensby.

“It’s a slap in the face in a way. You can’t expect guys to play six out of seven (weeks). Someone like me would, but only because I have to.”

Even the $10m (€7.4m) annuity that will be awarded to the play-off series winner after next month’s Tour Championship failed to impress the 35-year-old Australian.

“If that $10m was a truckload of cash, it would probably be different. But it’s deferred money going into a retirement account, so big deal,” he added.

“The whole FedEx Cup thing, they’re trying to build it up to be something it’s not. I don’t think most of the players think too much about it. Most of us are just trying to keep our jobs out here.”

But Joe Ogilvie, a player director of the tour policy board, claimed the series might actually be helped by the absence of Woods from the first event.

“That way he doesn’t get any points the first week and it’ll be pretty close towards the end,” Ogilvie said.

“It almost guarantees the Tour Championship is going to have a pretty big impact. In every play-off scenario, the best team gets a bye. I’m looking at it as he is the best player in the world and he is getting a bye.

“That bye is somewhat of a gamble in the sense that if one of the top four guys wins, Tiger’s going to be pretty far behind and it’s almost guaranteed he’s going to have to win one of the final three events.”

Ogilvie admitted he would liked for Woods to have competed in all four events but acknowledged that it perhaps was an unrealistic expectation.

“Three out of four for Tiger and five out of seven weeks is pretty good,” he added. “As long as it’s the first event and not the last, I think it’s going to be a success.”

Woods is not the only eligible player who will miss The Barclays after four more also pulled out.

Stephen Ames, Bernhard Langer, Ryan Palmer and Jason Bohn will also skip the opening event in the FedEx Cup series.

Ames wants to rest his suspect back, Langer will play the European Tour’s KLM Open, while Palmer has withdrawn due to personal reasons. Bohn has not played in more than two months due to a rib injury.

The top 144 qualifiers are eligible to play next week but those who miss the event will not be replaced, meaning at the moment the field will comprise of 139 players.