A whole new Swing
Competition among pre-Masters tournaments heats up
Posted: Thursday March 04, 1999 02:33 PM
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Four-round bye: Tiger Woods and the other top four players in the world are sitting out the Doral. AP |
By John Donovan, CNN/SI
In the old days, before million-dollar match play on the West Coast, before every other tournament had a purse bigger than the one Aunt Tildie used to carry, playing golf in Florida as a warm-up to the Masters was a gimme.
Money, geography and the modern player have pretty much conspired to put an end to that.
The four stops on the Florida Swing, and now a new pre-Masters layover in Georgia, are still very much alive and thriving. The five of them, starting with this weekend's Doral-Ryder Open in Miami, are hugely popular, as their growing purses attest.
But getting all the big-name players is no longer a sure thing.
"The guys that are going to play will play, and the guys that aren't will occasionally play. You get your fair share," says Cliff Danley, the executive director of the Honda Classic in Coral Springs, Fla., which is held March 11-14. "There is no real pattern."
Years ago, the saying goes, the golfing year began in Florida. But with events such as last weekend's $5 million Match Play Championship in Carlsbad, Calif., and eight other early season events in Hawaii, Arizona and California, the Florida Swing is no longer the start of the year for many golfers.
And that has resulted in some hot competition among the Florida events for the top golfers.
The Doral tees off this week without any of the Top 4 players in the world -- Tiger Woods, David Duval, Mark O'Meara and Davis Love III -- all of whom played at the Match Play Championship last week.
"We've got some good golfers here," Scott Montgomery, the director of the Doral, says rather defensively. "For the players, they're interested in the size of the purse. We have a $3 million purse. That's the highest purse on Tour, other than the major and what I call the near-majors."
It will be rare to see a top player who played in the Match Play last weekend play in all five pre-Masters tournaments in the Southeast. A golfer runs the risk of burnout doing that.
If there's one Masters Swing tournament that is a must for all the big players, though, it is the $5 million The Players Championship on March 25-28. Every golfer who can will be in Ponte Vedra Beach for that one, vying for the $900,000 first prize.
| The Masters Swing |
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| 1 | Doral Ryder Open
Miami, Fla., March 4-7 |
| 2 | Honda Classic
Coral Springs, Fla., March 11-14 |
| 3 | Bay Hill Invitational
Orlando, Fla., March 18-21 |
| 4 | The Players Championship
Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., March 25-28 |
| 5 | BellSouth Classic
Duluth, Ga., April 1-4 |
| * | The Masters
Augusta, Ga., April 8-11 |
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That leaves the other for Masters Swing tournaments -- the Doral, the Honda, the Bay Hill Invitational (March 18-21) and the BellSouth Classic just north of Atlanta (April 1-4) -- all hoping the best golfers take their breaks during the other guy's tournament.
Woods, for instance, is the reigning champion at the BellSouth Classic. But because the tournament is the week before the Masters this year -- it moved from its early May date last year -- Woods already has informed the people in Duluth, Ga., that he will not be back to defend his title. He'll be practicing for Augusta National that week and resting up from his Florida Swing.
Woods will skip Doral, but probably will play at Bay Hill (Woods lives in Orlando, where the tournament is held) and at the lucrative The Players Championship. He has not yet confirmed for the Honda.
"With the schedule the way it is, they're going to take some weeks off," says Dave Kaplan, the executive director of the BellSouth. "The question is, 'Which will it be?'"
All of the tournaments will still have their big names. Greg Norman, who has won at Doral three times, is playing there again this year. Woods probably will play in at least two Florida Swing tournaments. Duval, who went to Georgia Tech, is expected to play at the BellSouth, the stop that gave him his first sponsor's exemption when he still was a junior.
And then there is a bevy of international players, good golfers like Jose Maria Olazabal, Colin Montgomerie, Ian Woosnam and Ernie Els, who will pepper many of the fields getting ready for the Masters.
What it all comes down to is what the golfers feel like will best prepare them for the Masters. And there are several factors:
Rest? That's why many are skipping the Doral after the Match Play Championship, and why almost no one will play the entire Masters Swing.
A lot of playing? The five tournaments have total purses of $15.6 million, so many players will try to play as much as they physically can.
Practice? It's why Woods won't be at the BellSouth.
Playing on certain courses? The BellSouth likes to think of itself as an Augusta-type course, with generous fairways, bent-grass greens and weather typical to Augusta, which is an easy two-hour drive away.
It is, almost literally, different strokes for different folks.
"Operationally, you try to put on the best event you can. That's all you can do," says Danley. "The rest is up to the player."
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