Big names set to join European Tour

It seems that several big names from the PGA Tour are considering joining the European Tour to pursue the £56m ‘Race to Dubai’. Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh are two of the players that have made enquiries about become members in order to qualify.

The Race to Dubai replaces the order of merit and will feature a record 53 tournaments. This marathon journey of golf ends with the Dubai World Championship at the Jumeirah Golf Estates. The winner of this event will receive up to £3million – hence the interest from the PGA tour members. Money talks it seems.

To qualify for the Dubai World Championship, the players need to be in the top 60 players from the Race to Dubai itself. However, this isn’t really the issue as the golf odds would strongly favour the likes of Mickelson and Singh to be successful enough to finish well inside the required 60. The main issue for the PGA Tour players is fitting the European tour events into their schedule.

In order to qualify for the big money prize at the end of the Race to Dubai, European members must play 12 tour events – two of which must be played in Europe. So, PGA Tour members are weighing up their options and considering applying for European Tour membership. Should they go ahead with it, they will of course need to alert their schedules in order to create enough time to play in the 12 European tour events.

George O’Grady, who is the European Tour chief executive, admitted that he expects some ‘big names’ to play in the tournament and that Singh has already claimed that he is going to win it.

It certainly should be an excellent spectacle, with many of the world’s top golfer’s competing for the same prize. Realistically, it is mainly motivated by money, but if it provides us with some excellent entertainment then I suppose we will just have to accept this. After all, players with the pedigrees of Mickelson and Singh will give it their all should they take part. As Singh has already indicated, they are in it to win it - not just to take part.

One man that won’t be on the European Tour any time soon though is Tiger Woods. The world number one has recently admitted that he isn’t quite sure on how long he will be missing from competitive action. At his moment, he has to take it one step at a time. The closest he came to revealing any sort of time-scale, was by saying that he would ‘hit a few golf balls’ in January and see how that felt. So, it could potentially be at least another few months before we see Woods competing on the PGA or European tours.

Perhaps that is why the likes of Mickelson and Singh are so keen to play on both tours. Not only is the prize-money for winning extremely generous, but with a certain Mr Woods out of the picture – their chances of winning tournaments such as the Dubai World Championship are greatly improved.

Thomas Rooney – A sports writer who blogs about golf betting