WENTWORTH, England, 31 August 2005 — The world’s top four golfers — Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els — have withdrawn from next month’s 1 million pound ($1.78 million) World Match Play tournament.
Defending champion Els is recovering from knee surgery, while Woods, Singh and Mickelson joined Sergio Garcia, Chris DiMarco, Fred Couples and Davis Love in deciding not to play. No Americans are in the field, which was finalized yesterday and also does not feature any player to win a major this year.
First played 40 years ago, the Sept. 15-18 event at Wentworth event has 16 players and will count on the European Tour and world rankings.
Players are invited based on their finishes in the four majors, four designated European tournaments, and the European Order of Merit rankings.
Eight Europeans are in the field; David Howell, Paul McGinley, Colin Montgomerie, Kenneth Ferrie, Luke Donald, Thomas Bjorn, Bernhard Langer and Jose Maria Olazabal.
Completing the field are Australians Steve Elkington, Mark Hensby and Geoff Ogilvy; South Africans Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman and Tim Clark; New Zealand’s reigning US Open champion Michael Campbell and Argentina’s Angel Cabrera.
The draw, based on world rankings, is: Goosen vs. Ferrie; Montgomerie vs. Hensby; Campbell vs. Elkington; Clark vs. Ogilvy; Donald vs. Langer; Bjorn vs. Olazabal; Howell vs. McGinley and Cabrera vs. Immelman.
Lopez Names Ward, Daniel as US Wildcard Picks
Meantime, United States captain Nancy Lopez said her team were ready to win back the trophy after she named experienced duo Wendy Ward and Beth Daniel as her two wildcard picks for next month’s Solheim Cup against Europe.
The other 10 in the 12-woman team for the Ryder Cup-style event at Crooked Stick in Indiana from Sept. 9 to 11 automatically qualified via the US Solheim standings.
Among those, there were three rookies in Natalie Gulbis, Christina Kim and Paula Creamer, who turned 19 this month and will become the youngest player in Solheim history.
Creamer will be two years younger than Europe’s 2002 rookie, Suzann Pettersen.
“I think we have a great team,” said Lopez, whose only Solheim appearance came in the first match at Lake Nona in Florida in 1990.
“It is one of the strongest playing-wise and I also think that we will bond better than ever before. “Europe are a great team, but we mean business. I know that there are a lot of players who were on the losing side in Sweden two years ago and are breathing hot air wanting to get the Cup back.” Holders Europe won the 2003 Solheim Cup by 17-1/2 points to 10-1/2 at Barseback Golf and Country Club in Sweden.
Lopez conceded that five players had been in the running for her wildcard picks, with Heather Bowie, Dorothy Delasin and Stacy Prammanasudh among those unlucky to lose out.
“It was very hard, and I just wish I could have had 15 players in my team,” she said. “But I went with experience.
Wendy and Beth are both great players.” For Daniel, who makes her eighth appearance and missed only the 1998 matches when she had back trouble, will be the most experienced member of the team, at 49 in October, she will also become the oldest to play in the competition.
It will be Ward’s third Solheim Cup and she will be anxious to make up for the fact that she did not win a single point at Barseback two years ago.
Gulbis is the only member of the US team who has yet to win a tournament although the 22-year-old from Las Vegas, dubbed the Anna Kournikova of women’s golf, has twice finished second this season.
She was runner-up behind Cristie Kerr at the LPGA tournament in Virginia and also behind world number one Annika Sorenstam at the Scandinavian TPC in Sweden earlier this month.
