Tiger Opts To Begin '12 Season With European Tour Event Instead Of Torrey Pines

Tiger Woods will begin his '12 season playing the European Tour's Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, "presumably for a fat appearance fee,” according to Steve Elling of CBSSPORTS.com. Woods “had to be granted a competing-events release" by the PGA Tour, as the Abu Dhabi event is the same weekend as the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. PGA Tour rules state for a player “to be eligible for a competing-events release, he must play in the required 15 events annually.” Due to “injury or personal choice, Woods hasn’t played in 15 events since 2009,” but the tour "green-lighted him for the Abu Dhabi event, anyway, just as it did earlier this year for a competing European Tour event in Dubai, even though he did not play in the minimum number of Stateside events in 2010.” PGA Tour Exec VP & Chief of Operations Andy Pazder: "We have the flexibility within the tournament regulations to reduce the 15-tournament requirement in the event of an injury or illness for purposes of receiving a conflicting event release." With Woods skipping Torrey Pines, Elling asked, “What kind of message is the tour sending to its own tournaments by letting a guy slide on ground rules two years in a row, so that he can collect a paycheck overseas at an event that draws eyeballs away from its own product?” (CBSSPORTS.com, 11/16).

UNEVEN PLAYING FIELD: In San Diego, Tod Leonard reports winning purse in Abu Dhabi “is a pittance ($450,000) compared to that at Torrey Pines ($1,080,000), but it’s that several million dollars in appearance fee that make it a financial no-brainer.” Even if it wanted to, Farmers “can’t compete with that because appearance money is forbidden on the PGA Tour.” Farmers Tournament Dir Peter Ripa said, “It’s not a level playing field.” Leonard notes the problem for the PGA Tour is that “many of the world’s top players now are taking the cash and ignoring the events on the West Coast Swing.” This is a “big-picture problem for the tour and won’t be easily solved.” Ripa said that one idea that has been talked about for ‘14 is “to actually start the PGA Tour schedule in the fall of 2013 to get a jump-start on the European Tour, which begins its official schedule in early December” (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 11/17). Author John Feinstein said this has been a "growing problem on the Tour for events because they lose players who are offered big appearance fees to go overseas and play." Feinstein: "Tiger Woods owes it to the PGA Tour, specifically to Tim Finchem who has stood by him throughout his personal crisis right away, to make a point of trying to at least play in the events he’s played in in the past, if not new events.” He added Finchem needs to "take a hard look at the fact that his sponsors are consistently losing top players who want to go overseas and play because they can get a lot of money up front" (“Morning Drive,” Golf Channel, 11/17).