Poor draw set for PGA Tour's Crowne Plaza Invitational

The PGA Tour stops today in Fort Worth, Texas, for the Crowne Plaza Invitational at the Colonial. Sigh. This used to be a real draw of a tournament. Apparently, no longer. This year, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and many other top golfers are sitting it out. In fact, there’s only one top-10 golfer in the field: Jim Furyk. And speaking of Furyk, he enters the event having just dropped from No. 2 to No. 3 in the world rankings, swapping places with Mickelson after Lefty’s win a few weeks ago at the Players Championship. But he’s not phased. “I wish I was playing great golf and [Phil] was just playing better, but I haven’t been scoring really well…I haven’t been doing the things I needed to do to score well,” he tells PGATour.com. …

So where are all the big names? They’re probably over at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England, for the European Tour’s marquee event, the BMW Championship, which tees off today. I see Ernie Els is predicting that this year’s championship will be the “best ever,” and looking at the field, it’s tough to argue against that. Singh, Montgomerie, Stenson, Goosen, Harrington, Casey are all competing. Taking an early look at the leaderboard, local favorite Paul Broadhurst is in the lead at 3-under-par, through four holes, having carded three straight birdies after an opening par. …

The Senior PGA Championship hasn’t even officially started, and already golfers are talking about the weather conditions on Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course. Yesterday’s practice round ahead of today’s start battered players with record strength winds. Of course, players have come to expect this from Pete Dye’s Ocean Course. Remember the 1991 Ryder Cup held at the Ocean Course, the so called “War on the Shore"? Hale Irwin does. He was part of the American squad then. “When you play a course like the Ocean Course, or you play in wind that can shift, you have to have a lift-and-shift mentality,” he tells PGATour.com

The ladies tee it up today at the Corning Country Club in Corning, New York for the LPGA Tour’s Corning Classic, and like the PGA’s Crowne Plaza, the field here is suffering from a dearth of marquee names. Annika and Lorena are sitting it out. Hee-Won Han looks to defend her title. …

Over at TravelGolf.com, National Golf Editor Tim McDonald questions whether the PGA Tour’s much vaunted FedEx Cup has been a success or a pathetic flop.