The 2013 World Cup of Golf kicked off on Thursday at Royal Melbourne Golf Club under a new format from previous years.
The fourball and foursomes format has been replaced by a highly controversial individual stroke play format, where the scores from fellow countrymen are added together over the four rounds.
While none of the players taking part in the tournament wanted to admit it, they aren’t a fan of the new setup which has become more of individual tournament instead of a team-based one with the prize money distribution.
Individuals will play for a purse of $7 million, while the teams section is only worth a measly $1 million.
In an added twist to the event, under the qualification structure not all participating countries have two men in their team, meaning they’re ineligible for the teams trophy.
Also, players won’t play with their teammates until round three.
While World Cups are meant to be about countries coming together, golf has got their’s wrong and it has just become another WGC-like individual tournament with little to no importance placed on the teams part of it.
With the new structure under a trial format, let’s hope they can return to the old format and get it right for the future, with this year’s tournament a missed opportunity with such a world class field assembled on the Melbourne sand belt course.
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R Tickner
Guest
Well, just another Golf Tournament now. The TV coverage rarely mentions the team combined score, which shows how unimportant it is.
Brendo
Guest
Agreed Andrew, and the players really do like playing in a team format. Stenson said recently after winning both tour championships, that he is looking forward to winning a Ryder Cup for Europe next year. He went as far to say that after winning a major, winning the Ryder Cup is the next best thing for any European golfer. This event could be so much better. With a more distinct team feel it would give the event a greater representative aspect for the golfers and countries participating. This event gives golfers from individual nations the ability to represent their country, which is something the Americans only really get to do in a top line event. It's a shame, because I feel that Scotty and Jason would be a great pairing for a team event. You can see from other events throughout the year that the Aussies love playing together, not to mention that Adam and Jason are playing some pretty decent golf right now.
Andrew Potter
Roar Guru
Thomas Bjorn: "I think there should have been more of a team aspect in it than there is, but that's the way it is."
Johnno
Guest
To say the players are not a fan of it is silly, with an individual purse of $7 million and a team purse of $1 million, that's good coin. They'll be hacking away going hell for leather for the cash. They won't give 2 hoots about the feeling of winning a golf world cup lol, they'll pretend to say at the after torunament speeches how wonderful it is to win a golf world cup, but really the individual winner will be thinking how wonderful the 1st prize cheque is gonna be.