Tiger Woods is currently renegotiating a contact with Nike, expected to be worth up to $90 million over the next five years. But the world number one will make his first competitive appearance in this country for nothing, in the J P McManus International Pro-Am at Limerick GC on July 10th and 11th.
As it happens, the £400,000 tournament, which is Europe's richest-ever two-day event, takes place on the Monday and Tuesday after the Smurfit European Open. For Woods, however, this happens to be directly after the Western Open, which was one of eight US Tour events he won last season.
So, having defending the title in Illinois, he will fly on his private aircraft to Shannon and be ready to compete on the 6,386-yard parkland terrain of Ballyclough, on the Monday afternoon. His willingness to undertake such a schedule, reflects the close friendships he made here, as McManus's guest over the last two years.
The 40 teams of three amateurs, who are paying £40,000 per team, will be split into two groups of 20 for shotgun starts, morning and afternoon. And there will be an open draw for professional partners, based on the world rankings. With the line-up still to be completed, the leading players are: Woods, David Duval, Ernie Els, Lee Janzen, Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke, Mark O'Meara, Mark Brooks, Andrew Magee, Stuart Appleby and another Australian, Robert Allenby, who captured the Houston Open last Sunday.
New Zealander Michael Campbell, twice a winner on the European Tour so far this season, will be returning to an event in which he produced a high finish in 1995. Meanwhile, Jean Van de Velde will join European colleagues who are likely to include Colin Montgomerie. All the leading Irish players will also be in action, including Padraig Harrington, Paul McGinley, Philip Walton, Des Smyth, Eamonn Darcy and David Jones.
This is the third such event to be run by McManus and the previous two were also held on the tree-lined Limerick course where he has been a member for 20 years. The 1995 staging raised £2.94 million for local charities and it can be taken that the return this year will be double that figure.
All expenses are being paid by McManus, which means that all monies raised will go to six Limerick charities - for the mentally and physically handicapped.
As it happens, Woods could be on strike during his impending visit, unless a current dispute is resolved by then. He has joined a strike set up by television commercial actors which cancelled the filming of an advertisement at the player's home course near Orlando.
Organised by the Screen Actors Guild of which Woods is a member, the industrial action is aimed at getting money when commercials are aired on cable television. Meanwhile, Sergio Garcia has confirmed he will be defending the Murphy's Irish Open title at Ballybunion on June 29th to July 2nd. And the line-up will also include Colin Montgomerie, who dominated the event at Druids Glen, prior to Garcia's triumph.
Maintaining their admirable support of amateur players, the organisers have offered sponsors' invitations to the 1997 US Amateur champion, Matt Hucher, and Australian Aaron Baddeley.
