If only rules were made to be broken

As a somewhat willful child with more ideas than sense my Scottish-born mother often reminded me that I had been “hoist with my own petard.”

The phrase, which literally means being blown up by one’s own bomb, comes to mind as speculation hots up as to which golfers will play in this year’s Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City from November 29 to December 2.

In an effort to lift the 12-man event out of realm of an exhibition and give it some credibility as a serious golf tournament – at least in the eyes of the US PGA - the organisers were some years ago forced to adopt a strict qualifying code.

They were also trying to preserve the fact that world ranking points were available in their event and came up with the simple formula of inviting the defending champion, the winners of the four major tournaments followed by the world rankings in descending order.

This is the rule that militated against Retief Goosen in the last two years when most local golf fans felt he should have been invited.

The man who this year will almost certainly, as the reigning US Open champion, be in the field was always just too far down the list to justify inclusion… even though most of us thought he would have been far more of a drawcard that John Huston!

But how the bankers and hoteliers must wish, this year, that they could turn their backs on their own qualifying standard.

In spite of their efforts the “Million Dollar”, as a limited field event, does not qualify for world ranking points and attracting top-class players is complicated by the fact that the No1 draw and US Masters champion Tiger Woods does not travel but for the inducement of, it is said, $2.5-million while world No2 Phil Mickelson and British Open champion David Duval (No3) also do not like to travel in December.

This tends also to be the case for others such as Davis Love and Hal Sutton – habits that were in place even before the horrific events of September 11.

The upshot has been that the field has become a little “eurocentric” with the trio of Montgomerie, Clarke and Westwood supplemented by others from the continent lesser known Americans.

How the organisers must wish they never made the rule that kept out Retief Goosen because it would have enabled them to invite John Daly.

A recent poll on SuperGolf showed that swashbuckling “Long John” Daly would have been the fans’ favourite but, in spite of having recently returned to the winner’s circle in Germany, he is currently 69th on the world rankings and therefore pretty much out of the picture.

Certainly, if it came to making choice between the raw hitting of Daly or the fiddle-it-about method of a Scott Hoch it would be no contest.

An additional problem for the Nedbank Challenge is the pesky dollar part of their tournament. Even having doubled their million they are struggling to keep pace with the $5-million World Championship Golf events and a rampantly buoyant US PGA Tour.

The Tour recently signed a $825-million four-year TV deal that in all likelihood will soon make $6-million purses the rule rather than the exception. At that rate golfers will soon be playing for million dollar first prizes in ordinary tour events.

Thus don’t expect an influx of Americans at Sun City this year. Goosen, Ernie Els and Nick Price will be joined by the afore-mentioned Westwood, Clarke and Montgomerie which leaves six places.

US PGA champion David Toms is said to have accepted his invitation and Jim Furyk is apparently keen to make up for having pulled out last year.

That makes four to go. Vijay Singh and Sergio Garcia, who are in the top 10, are first in line but apparently less than keen which starts bringing Hoch (ranked 12th), Padraig Harrington (13), Scott Verplank (14), Canadian Mike Weir (16), Mark Calcavecchia (17), Paul Azinger (19), Thomas Bjorn (20), Hal Sutton (21) and even Bernhard Langer (22) into the frame.

Right now, apart from the first six, your guess is as good as mine.