Is "the lure of the greatest player of his generation not as valuable as it used to to be?" asked James Corrigan of the London TELEGRAPH. Certainly "that appears the case in Middle East." The organizers of both the Abu Dhabi Championship and Desert Classic will not be shelling out the estimated $2M-$3M which Tiger Woods "requires to make the trip." And although the position of the Dubai competition "is complicated by the fact it is sponsored by a rival watch company to the one which endorses Woods, it is believed they would not have been willing to meet the demands." It can "surely be seen as the end of an era" as the only times in the last 10 seasons when Woods did not appear on the European Tour’s “Gulf Swing” was in '09 and '10, "when he was recovering from a knee operation and in the midst of a very public scandal respectively." A Tour insider said, “Of course Tiger is still a huge name, but those tournaments are not prepared to bus their budgets any more, or at the very least spend their entire budget on one man. ... In these market conditions, at those prices, Woods does not represent the value he once did" (TELEGRAPH, 10/14).
