Thursday
Aug232007
"Rory Sabbatini still found a way to tug on Superman’s cape"
That's Steve Elling writing about Rory Sabbatini's latest comments directed toward Tiger. Now, they say the definition of insane is when you keep doing the same thing ov...you go Rory! We love when Tiger wipes the floor with you!
His favorite foil, Tiger Woods, isn’t even in the field this week, yet cantankerous Rory Sabbatini still found a way to tug on Superman’s cape and court another mini-controversy.This ought to go over particularly well in Orlando this week.
Sabbatini shot an 8-under 63 Thursday to take the first-round lead at the inaugural FedEx Cup playoff event, The Barclays at Westchester Country Club, but he couldn’t resist taking the bait when the topic of Woods’ controversial absence was broached.
Sabbatini, whose opinionated honesty has repeatedly landed him in some sticky situations with regard to Woods this year, characterized the decision of the game’s top player to skip the first round of the mega-hyped playoff series as an embarrassing black eye.
“It's a disappointment because, obviously the whole purpose of this new system was to try and create an atmosphere that would draw everybody to the final four events of the year,” Sabbatini said. “Obviously, it's kind of backfired in the sense by Tiger skipping the first event.
“It leaves a lot of questions and a lot of interesting questions to what they need to do, to maybe change it so that you definitely have the incentive to play all four.”
Sabbatini, who won earlier this year at Colonial and stands sixth in FedEx Cup points entering the week, said those who skip stages should suffer a penalty of some sort and possibly should not receive the full $10 million bonus if they win the four-week race.
“There's many guys that play on tour that are out of shape and they play six, seven weeks in a row,” Sabbatini said. “It's just, I don't know if there's any solution to it, but there's got to be some kind of financial incentive.”
Woods’ claim that he was too tired to play after winning back-to-back weeks at the Bridgestone and PGA Championship rang hollow in Sabbatini’s ears. For Woods, the FedEx bonus money is probably no great windfall, odd as it might sound to civilians out there, he said.
“Oh, I definitely think it's something other than fatigue,” he said. “Well, I think maybe to some people $10 million doesn't seem like a whole lot of incentive but to others it would seem like a good incentive.”
For more of Rory's thoughts, here is his press conference transcript.
Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 08:31 PM
Reader Comments (12)
Also Scott Verplank has already announced he will skip next week, and Mickelson will probably skip next week too.
Why haven't the media and other players jumped on these other guys?
Tiger is golf's biggest draw, and arguably the greatest talent the game has ever seen. When he skips the first event in a very high profile program that is the FedEx Cup, he will get criticized. Don't worry about him, he is a big boy, he can handle it.
As for Rory, I love his candor. I don't think he was criticizing Tiger, he was questioning the playoff setup. Well, a little dig about out of shape golfers playing 6 or 7 weeks in a row. But the way Tiger focuses his mind on golf, I think it could be difficult even for him to do that week in and week out. Of course, Tiger could come out in a coma and finish T10 most weeks on tour...
Rory is full of it! He can't win a major but he decides to mess with the best of the best. Beat Tiger first and then talk.
Why does Tiger ned the PGA Tour..Seriously, why? He can play the Majors, a few spot Euro Tour events in Dubai and sponsor excemptions at all the Buick events and still get a full slate in.
And that will cause a bunch of players to skip Fedex thingy events next year because there will be no week off in between the Tour Championship and the Ryder Cup. Jim Furyk has already come out with criticism about the placement of the Fedex right before the Ryder Cup where he and others will be asked to play 90 holes in 3 days. Skipping an event will be seen as the prudent thing to do. And if a Ryder Cup player doesn't skip an event, he will be criticised for caring more about a cash grab than the Ryder Cup.
It's not that these guys can't play 4, 5 or even 10 weeks in a row. They all could do it, but the issue is will it negatively affect their game, that is why many will skip events this year and in the future. Just watch-- you will see it as early as next week.
Where did he say the part about the "embarrassing black eye"?
Please give Rory a break. All the guy did was answer some questions (honestly).