He’ll play in the Accenture and Buick events, but Tiger Woods will skip the Tour Championship at East Lake next week. Citing that playing seven out on nine weeks was “taxing mentally and physically,” Woods dealt a major setback to the tournament by taking a pass. As Phil Mickelson will also not attend, none of the champions of the four majors will be competing.
The note on Woods’ website read as follows:
“Playing seven out of nine weeks with an additional trip to Ireland for Ryder Cup practice was taxing both mentally and physically and I feel like I need another week away from competitive golf. I’m confident that this extended break will help me to recharge my batteries for the 2007 season.”
The Ryder Cup ended over a month ago.
According to the site, Woods will close out his 2006 season by playing in two international events (the HSBC Champions Tournament and Dunlop Phoenix Tournament), the PGA Grand Slam of Golf and his own event, the Target World Challenge.
This also deals a blow to Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem’s deisre to imcrease the prestige of the Tour Championship. Next year’s “Run to the FedEx Cup” would require players to make just the kind of time committment Woods cites as exhausting and require them to make it exactly the same time. Many critics think Finchem’s quest to increase eyeballs on golf during the start of football season and during the height of the baseball playoffs is not going to singificantly increase viewers or gate receipts and will meet with stern opposition from the players, who only compete post-PGA Championship to qualify for next year’s tour or for limited field events.
Leave a reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.