TOUR NEWS: WORLD NUMBER nine Pádraig Harrington, who tees it up in the Deutsche Bank Championship (the second leg of the US Tour's FedEx Cup play-off series) in Boston today, will skip next month's World Matchplay Championship and play the €3.5 million Singapore Open instead, organisers said yesterday.
The three-times major winner would almost certainly have qualified for the Matchplay but has chosen to return to the Singapore Open, which takes place in the same week and is co-sanctioned by the European Tour this year.
South African Ernie Els has already decided not to defend the Matchplay title he won at the last version of the event in 2007 and honour his commitment to play at Sentosa.
Els and Harrington, who finished joint-second a shot behind India’s Jeev Milkha Singh in Singapore last year, will be joined by South Korea’s KJ Choi at the October 29th-November 1st event.
Meanwhile, Paul Casey’s rib muscle tear is taking longer to heal than he hoped and he has withdrawn from the Deutsche Bank Championship. The world number three did not feel able to hit any more than a sand wedge during practice.
Casey suffered the injury getting ready for the British Open in July, managed only a few holes of the Bridgestone world championship last month and then withdrew from both the USPGA and last week’s Barclays tournament.
After a scan revealed a tear of an oblique and strain of an intercostal muscle, Casey had a cortisone injection, but concern about making the situation worse prompted his decision to take another week off.
Deutsche Bank Championship:
Selected tee-times
(On TV: Eurosport 2, tonight, 8pm)
13.16 – Goosen, O’Hair, Furyk
13.28 – Mickelson, Els, Ogilvy
17.22 – Baird, Garcia, B Watson
17.46 – Harrington, Toms, Mahan
18.10 – Stricker, Woods, Slocum
