Anything For The Fifth Of Four: Rory And Lee Get An Extra Tournament To Ensure They Make It To The Players**

Lawrence Donegan reports on a new policy board-approved clause that lets some elite non-member international players to get in one more PGA Tour appearance than originally thought.

"I spoke to them last week and I can play three world golf championships [in the US], four majors, the Players Championship and three invites," Westwood said.

The Englishman's problem was that in addition to the 10 most obvious events he also wanted to play in the St Jude Classic in Memphis, a tournament he won last year. "That adds up to 11. I would then have to pick between the Players and Memphis, and I don't think anyone would have wanted that, not the PGA tour or the sponsors."

The concession to Westwood, who snubbed the PGA Tour in fairly forthright terms, lends weight to the belief that the tectonic plates of global golf are shifting to the disadvantage of an organisation which has long been the richest and most powerful entity in the sport.

Doug Ferguson explains how was less about the strength of the tour and more about The Players.

Players who resign their membership or fail to play the minimum 15 events face a five-year period of playing only 10 Tour events. Westwood gave up his U.S. membership in 2008 when he played only 10 times, while McIlroy decided this year to resign his membership.

Westwood prefers to play the Honda Classic (situated between two World Golf Championships), the Houston Open (the week before the Masters), and the St. Jude Classic, where he is the defending champion. Throw in The Players Championship, which has the deepest field and offers the highest purse in golf, and he would have to decide.

Update on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 at 08:25 AM by Geoff

**So much for Rory coming to Ponte Vedra. From Paul Mahoney on Twitter:

Comments

[carnaptious and camsteerie]

Is it possible the pga tour is thee most undemocratically run organisation in the entire world? Finchem keeps changing the rules as he goes along.

Score one to Westy though. He sure won that bluff. I guess little Timmy doesn't want to risk the number one owgr player not competing in his wannabe major.

[thusgone]

"all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

[peter kostis (back from the dead)]

All the tours need to get together and allow the top 10 at year end in OWGR to be exempt on all tours anywhere in the world with no restrictions for the following year. That might set up some interesting golf amongst the top players at the end of the year.

[digsouth]

Agreed Peter, but I would go deeper than top 10, say 20, and would stipulate that PGA winners *must* play the opening Hawaii event, and the other tours could have some similar provision.


Happy Thanksiving.

[Tottenham Hotspur]

The players are,after all, independent contractors. If someone doesn't like a course then so be it. See Trevino and Augusta.

[OxfordBufties]

To Elling's point, if you are paid to like a course then you like it (no coincidence). Besides which he is turning up to play there in the Euro tour's flagship event. Given that the guys in Ponte Vedra openly briefed against him (rather than having a quiet word) on his eligibility, you might understand him being negative about the PGA tour's flagship event. All of this stuff is inevitable if you have some franchise competition, and allowing the top guys to play anywhere is not going to solve that.

[Oliver Chettle]

For the sake of golf as a global sport it is essential that as many top international players as possible skip this tournament.