Colin Montgomerie has slammed past Masters winner Charl Schwartzel has threatened to resign his European Tour membership over the eligibility criteria for the Tour’s Final Series.
The South African is furious with the rule you must play two of the three events of the four tournaments comprising the $32.5m Final Series to be eligible for the last, and that is next week’s DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
Charl Schwartzel threatens to resign from European Tour over Final Series criteria. (Photo – Fran Caffrey/www.golffile.ie)
Schwartzel is contesting this week’s third event of the inaugural Final Series, the Turkish Airlines Open but he will not be eligible, despite lying 23rd on the Race to Dubai money list, for the season-closing event in the UAE.
This is because Schwartzel did not enter either of the opening two events in Shanghai, the BMW Masters or last week’s WGC – HSBC Championship.
As such, he will now joining fellow South African Ernie Els and Spain’s Sergio Garcia, in not competing in Dubai even if Schwartzel were to capture this week’s $7m Turkish Airlines Open.
“It does make you think about your future on the European Tour if they can are going to continue making these rules,” said Schwartzel in news reports (UK papers this morning)
“It will become too difficult to fulfil your commitments all over. I will have to sit back and think what will suit me as a player best.
“I’ve played on the European Tour for 11 years and really enjoy it and I would love to keep playing, but with these sort of rules coming in I will have to play some tournaments in South Africa and America only.
“I really want to play next week but I think there’s been some bad decisions made and unfortunately I can’t. I’m not going to carry on about it but it really needs to be looked at.
“I’ve spoken to the Tour about it and apparently they’re going to look into it. I just can’t get why they couldn’t change it because it would have been for the better of everyone.”
Els was also recently critical of the Final Series criteria but as a European Tour official pointed out ‘they had to tweak the FedEx Cup Series on the PGA Tour before they got it right and I guess we will have to do the same here in Europe”.
However former eight-time European Tour No. 1 believes the Tour should ‘hold firm’ and not bow to the pressure from the likes of the US-based Schwartzel.
“I think the Tour should hold firm,” said Montgomerie also in news reports.
“The first thing a sponsor asks when they are putting up $7m or $8m is who’s playing. If you can say to these sponsors that the top players are going to play two out of the three that is why they put the money in.
“The players are saying they are being dictated to and being told where to play but you shouldn’t have to be told to play for $7m should you? The biggest event when I started was worth £400,000 and that was the Swiss Open. Now they’re not turning up for $7m? Hang on a minute. They are professional golfers, that’s their job.”
And the Scot, who posted a first round level par 72 on the Maxx Royal course he designed is critical of the likes of Schwartzel who complain of ‘burn out’.
“People are saying they can’t play four events in a row. For goodness sake I played 13 in a row when I was at my peak,” said Montgomerie.
“Four in a row is not a lot especially the way they are treated nowadays. They are like royalty with their private planes and suites. It’s hardly a hassle is it?”
