Woosnam Says Rankings Skewed
Ian Woosnam thinks Colin Montgomerie’s decision not to join the PGA Tour full time was an enormous boost for the European Tour, but he still feels his home tour is hurt by too much emphasis placed on U.S. events by the World Golf Rankings.
The top 64 from those rankings will qualify for the World Golf Championships Match Play tournament beginning in 1999.
“The world rankings have gone fairly heavy to the American side now,” Woosnam said Monday from Florida. “It’s become now where you feel you have to win three times a year just to stay in the top 50.”
Woosnam, 39, said he will continue to play six to eight events a year in the United States and that he will play at Bay Hill and the Players Championship next year leading into the Masters.
Montgomerie announced earlier this month that he would play more often in the United States in 1998 and slightly less in Europe but that he would remain a member of the European Tour.
“I think it was very important,” Woosnam said. “We are starting to lose too many players and other people were talking about moving.”
Woosnam was in Florida to visit several Edwin Watts golf shops to promote the Hippo and Tegra brands of golf equipment. Woosnam will play in the World Cup of Golf this week at Kiawah Island, S.C.
Asked what he remembered about Kiawah from the 1991 Ryder Cup, Woosnam had a simple answer: “Wind.”
“And that was match play,” he said. “This time we have to keep a scorecard.”
Down under on top
Australia now has the top-ranked male and female golfer in the world as Karrie Webb slipped past Annika Sorenstam to join Greg Norman as No. 1.
Webb went into the Australia Open last week less than a half-point behind Sorenstam, who did not play in Melbourne. Webb finished fifth and earned enough points to take over the top spot in the PING World Rankings.
“I don’t know how I could be,” Webb said from Las Vegas, where she’s preparing to defend the LPGA Tour Championship title that crowned her record-breaking rookie season last year. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” she said.
It is the first time Australia has had the No. 1 male and female players.
World Cup
Davis Love III and Fred Couples seek a fifth World Cup victory in six years this week at Kiawah Island, S.C. That run by the American pair was interrupted only by their decision not to play last year.
Love and Ernie Els will fly from Hawaii to Kiawah Island today after finishing the PGA Grand Slam event against Tiger Woods and Justin Leonard, the other two major championship winners this year. The South African team of Els and Wayne Westner are defending champs.