Singh set for long break

2008-10-01

Share this article:  Digg |  StumbleUpon |  del.icio.us |  Reddit

By Andrew Both
PA SportsTicker Golf Writer

ATLANTA (Ticker) - Vijay Singh has some nagging injuries that have prompted him to pull out of a couple of Asian tournaments he had planned to contest over the next two months.

Singh, who clinched the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup title on Sunday, will take a full two-month break, an eternity by his standards.

The only events he plans to play the rest of the year are the Father/Son Challenge and the Tiger Woods World Challenge, both in December.

“I’ve been hurt a lot,” Singh said. “My arm still hurts and my back still hurts, so I’m going to take some time off and get myself in good shape physically and see if I can come out stronger.”

That’s probably a wise course of action. Although 45-year-old Singh will forfeit a couple of fat appearance fees by skipping those Asian tournaments, he did pick up $10 million for winning the FedEx Cup.

That should allow him to scrape through the winter without going into too much debt.

IS PGA TOUR RECESSION PROOF?: Citigroup’s announcement Monday that it was acquiring Wachovia Bank’s banking operations raises the question of the status of the PGA Tour event in Charlotte.

That’s because Wachovia is the naming rights sponsor of the May tour stop.

The tournament, which began only in 2003, has quickly become one of the most successful regular tour events on the calendar, thanks mainly to the quality of the Quail Hollow course, which most of players rate highly.

Last year, 29 of the world’s top 30 players competed, an unheard of turnout for a regular event.

During this year’s event, Wachovia sheepishly announced that it was extending its sponsorship of the tournament through at least 2014.

However, perhaps because it had just retrenched hundreds of workers, it did not make the announcement with any fanfare, instead just posting a press release at the back of the media center.

The previous week, when EDS announced it had extended its sponsorship of the Byron Nelson Championship, it had a big press conference with the company’s CEO and tour commissioner Tim Finchem.

Speaking of Finchem, he said at his press conference last week that he was confident that the tour would come through the nation’s current economic problems unscathed.

He claimed the tour had emerged stronger from past recessions, notwithstanding that more than a dozen tour events are currently sponsored by financial institutions.

“In every recession I’ve been involved in, companies work harder at evaluating their investment,” he said. “That usually works to our benefit, because most companies we deal with are involved in multiple sports, and on the value proposition, we always pencil out very, very good.”

That’s some spin, claiming that recessions are good for the tour.

And it’s worth noting that Finchem’s comments were made before the stock market plunged on Monday after the House of Representatives voted not to bail out Wall Street.

Finchem’s comments seem to assume the current recession is your garden-variety type that will be similar to previous contractions.

But if, as some believe, this one will be the mother of all recessions, all bets are off.

As reported Monday, television ratings for PGA Tour events have been appalling since Tiger Woods left the tour in June for a knee reconstruction.

Sports Business Journal says that the average weekend national TV rating has been 1.6, a four percent market share, down 36 percent from the same period last year.

Even Finchem acknowledges ratings have been down, but he expects them to jump back up when Woods returns.

SEPTEMBER DATE: The PGA Tour has not released its 2009 schedule because it is in negotiations with NBC over the date of the Tour Championship.

The tour wants a one-week break between the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship, because that would make it more likely that the top players would contest all four events in the FedEx Cup playoff series.

However, NBC, which telecasts the final three play-off events, wants them played in consecutive weeks, with the Tour Championship September 17-20.

As for the rest of the schedule, the most significant change is that the Texas Open, which has been traditionally played in October, will move into a prime date in mid-May, replacing the defunct Atlanta tour stop.

TRIVIA QUESTION: Where will the four majors be played next year?

NAIVETY NEEDED: After failing to post a victory this year, Stuart Appleby says he needs to work on his mind to fulfill his potential.

Appleby has such a good swing that he never has a bad season. In the past 12 years, he has not finished lower than 55th on the tour money list.

He has posted eight victories, but hasn’t won since 2005, and though he missed just one cut in 2008, he only once came close to winning, at the World Golf Championships event in Akron, where he tied for second in August.

So Appleby wants to adopt elements of Anthony Kim and Kenny Perry in 2009.

The way he sees it, they both play carefree golf, even though they are at opposite ends of the age spectrum, Kim 23 and Perry 48.

“If I just work on improving my mental game, I think that’s where the most improvement will come from,” Appleby said Sunday. “I’ve got to make a concerted effort over the summer to decide what player I want to be and try to mold that person for the next 10 years.

“I probably need to become more like an Anthony Kim. He’s more naive. I need to get back to the days where you just play golf, don’t worry about anything else. Kenny Perry just plays free spirited golf and that’s not what old guys do. Old guys are supposed to lose their nerve.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Sergio Garcia, commenting on the criticism in the British press of Nick Faldo’s Ryder Cup captaincy - “I think it’s horrendous? It’s not his fault (we lost). He did the best he could as a captain and then it comes down to us.”

TRIVIA ANSWER: The Masters - Augusta National, Augusta, Georgia, April 9-12.

United States Open - Bethpage Black, Farmingdale, New York, June 18-21.

British Open - Turnberry, Scotland, July 16-19.

PGA Championship - Hazeltine National, Chaska, Minnesota, August 13-16.