Ernie Taking the Heat For Playing Hookie
Ernie follows the money.
Ernie Els is fielding some heavy criticism this week for skipping the final tournament of the European Tour, the Volvo Masters. The European Tour hands out their Order of Merit, basically Europe’s version of the player of the year trophy, at the last tournament to the player who has accumulated the most points, again basically like the way the PGA Tour uses to determine its player of the year. Ernie has played very well on the European Tour including an almost win at the BMW PGA Championship and was poised to take this year’s Order of Merit.
So, where exactly is Ernie Els this week. Ernie decided to play the Barclays Singapore Open instead, citing his three-year commitment with his sponsors there to play in it.
Chief among the Ernie bashers is Colin Montgomerie. Monty was quoted saying, “The Order of Merit meant a lot to me and it obviously does not to others. This is our flagship tournament - our Tour Championship if you like - and it’s a shame that all the players who qualified aren’t here.” Monty then went on to say, “This should have been their priority. I would never, ever miss this event.”
And Ernie wasn’t the only one that opted to go to Singapore instead, Angel Cabrera, Lee Westwood, Michael Campbell and Nick O’Hern all decided to follow the money.
I don’t disagree with Monty in principle here, but lets face it, we’re a society that operates around money. And people follow where the money is. Ernie had a three-year agreement with the Singapore Open to play there. Basically, they’ve paid him to show up for three years. He’s not going to give back the money so that he can play at the Volvo Masters.
PGA Tour, Ginn sur Mer Classic, Daniel Chopra, Shigeki Maruyama
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:50 pm
[...] is your clubhouse leader at the Singapore Open, part of the Asian Tour. After all the hoopla over Ernie Els decision to skip the ET for the Singapore Open, Els shot a 5-over today and missed the cut. Hey, maybe now he can fly to [...]