"Only four of the top 20"

Brian Hiro in the North County Times points out that the Buick Invitational features "only four of the top 20 players in the world rankings: Woods (No. 1), Mickelson (No. 4), Vijay Singh (No. 6) and Jose Maria Olazabal (No. 19)."

Now, if I'm not mistaken, this is the final year before the 2008 U.S. Open when the South will be played three of four days. Isn't the North supposed to be the weekend course next year? Or did that idea fizzle out?

Do the players hate it that much, or are they just not that interested in understand local knowledge anymore? 

Comments

[J.T.]

Well this is the 4th tournament of the year and I've yet to see any "Incentivizing"! The games biggest stars are showing a real apathy for the FECES Cup, or their just sick of Timmy calling them independent contractors.

[Whizzer]

I'm not sure how much local knowledge, in order to get an advantage in a tournament played in June, players can gain by playing the course in January. Pebble Beach hasn't played nearly the same in the Pro-Am as in the US Open when it's been there. Besides, players know what to expect from a US Open set-up by now, don't they? And Torrey isn't really the most subtle, feature-laden course out there.

[Hawkeye]

I was first going to poke a stick and ask "How many other full-time US Tour players are ranked in the world's top 20?" but then I realized that the answer was "10". So, 10 out of 14 (if you don't count the Euro players who are also exempt) top-20 players are taking a pass. I guess the answer lies in the fact that Torrey is a boring bomber's course (bye, bye Furyk, Donald, Ogilvy), coupled with fact that Qatar pays better appearence money (hello Els, Goosen, Garcia, DiMarco).

[RBS]

Some of us think Tiger IS the world's top 20.