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CHICAGO, Illinois: Forget the deferred payments and
the PGA’s Wanna-maker Trophy sitting on a stand at the first tee
box, Tiger Woods says all the enticement he needs is someone to show
him the money.
“How great would it be like in
the World Series of Poker, at the first tee starting the first day
of the Tour Championship, all you see is (US$10 million cash)
stacked up there and that’s what we’re playing for. That would
create a lot of buzz,” Woods said.
Speaking on the eve of the BMW
Championship, Woods and others are not pleased with the format for
the PGA’s new FedEx Cup playoff series.
The top players are not happy
that the US$10 million winner’s prize of the four-tournament
playoff series is a deferred annuity that cannot be collected until
the player turns 45.
Woods said Wednesday that he
could be dead before he gets a chance to spend the money.
“It’s not the true payout,”
he said. “I may not be around to collect it.”
South African Ernie Els was the
most vocal on Wednesday, publicly exposing the growing rift between
the world’s top players and the PGA Tour.
Els claimed the tour and the
players were growing further apart. He said the players had little
or no input into decisions made by the tour, particularly concerning
the playoff series, which comprises four consecutive events, one too
many it seems for most of the game’s box office draws.
“I just feel in certain ways
we’ve kind of grown apart a little bit, especially the players and
the commissioner’s office,” the South African said. “We’ve
grown apart because of all these big decisions that were made
without the real knowledge of the players.”
Els said he and the others were
surprised to learn that the lion’s share of the prize money
wouldn’t be available for decades.
--AFP
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