Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, others to miss PGA Tour's Crowne Plaza Invitational

From WorldGolf.com News Services

A busy week in golf and a soft spot in the schedule mean that the PGA Crowne Plaza Invitational will be missing many of the PGA Tour's top stars. With Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and others sitting this week, along with the BMW PGA Championship taking place on the European PGA Tour, Jim Furyk will be the only player in the World's Top-12 to tee it up at Colonial Country Club course in Fort Worth, Texas.

The PGA Crowne Plaza Invitational, formerly the Colonial, had in previous years been matched up with the Byron Nelson Championship, allowing players to skip out on travel for a week and play consecutive tournaments in Texas. However, the PGA Tour has made scheduling changes this year, holding the Byron Nelson last month, while leaving the Crowne Plaza Invitational two weeks after the Players Championship and only a week before the popular Memorial tournament in Ohio.

The end result is that just two of the top-10 players to tee it up at the Nelson are teeing it up at the Crowne Plaza Invitational, where Tim Herron is the defending champion.

"Before you had good fields at the Nelson and good fields at Colonial," Jason Gore told reporters. "Now the fields have been liquidated. It's unfortunate."

For Furyk, the event will be a chance to record his 13th career PGA Tour victory after having been recently been replaced in golf's world rankings as the No. 2 golfer in the world by Mickelson.

PGA Tour supports tournaments

The PGA Tour is putting its money where its mouth is, as a new sponsorship deal means that more than 200 tournaments with a combined 13,000 entries will benefit from their sponsorship. The new dealt provides sponsorship of national and regional tournaments in PGA of America Sections starting this year, as the Tour takes over as Supporting Sponsor of PGA of America Professional Tournaments.

"The PGA is delighted to welcome the PGA Tour's broad based sponsorship of tournaments for our member professionals," PGA of America Chief Executive Officer Joe Steranka said. "The financial commitment the Tour has made to support both PGA Sections and the PGA Professional National Championship further demonstrates how the two Associations recognize the importance of promoting the highest quality of golf, as well as playing opportunities for PGA members to showcase their tremendous golfing talents on the national stage."

May 24, 2007