Golf: Singh Withdraws From World Championship

The tentacles of Hurricane Jeanne spread across the Atlantic yesterday when Vijay Singh finally decided to miss the American Express World Golf Championship which starts tomorrow here at Mount Juliet.

Singh, the world No1, lives close to the US Tour's Florida headquarters in Ponte Vedra near Jacksonville, which has been closed these past few days as power failed and water rose. Singh's home, right on the beach, is flooded and neighbours have literally been battening down the hatches as tornadoes, spawned by the hurricane, have swept in.

"The favourite safe place," the US Tour official James Cramer said yesterday, "has been the closet."

In golf terms the absence of the Fijiian, winner of five of his past six events, is a crying shame because it would have been the first confrontation between him and Woods since he displaced the American at the top of the world rankings.

Nor is Singh the only withdrawal, although none of the others is citing a wrecked house and a distraught family as a reason. Phil Mickelson says he is tired, John Daly claims an injured foot and Mike Weir is also weary.

But the Irish public probably will not mind too much. The event publicity talks about "homecoming heroes" and, though that is a reference to all the European Ryder Cup team, it really means the three Irishmen who starred in that production, Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley.

If excuses were needed, Clarke picked up a virulent form of flu on the flight home from Detroit. At first he put down the symptoms to a hangover suffered after the victory celebrations.

As Clarke left the Oakland Hills media centre on that Sunday night he buttonholed one journalist and told him he was going to celebrate in a style "commensurate" with the size of the win.

"Commensurate?" queried the hack. "Commensurate," emphasised Clarke.

Yesterday, after his press conference, he repaired to his bed. "I feel weak and lethargic," he said. "I had it really bad in the middle of last week and then on Sunday I was really bad again. It's up and down." Be sure he will be on the 1st tee tomorrow, though.

Clarke has won only one tournament as a professional in Ireland, the European Open three years ago, and that is certainly not commensurate with his talent. He has, though, won two of these world championship events, the Accenture Match Play in 2000 and the NEC Invitational last year.

All in all he has won some $3.6m (£2m) from the WGC tournaments in their six years. That is plenty commensurate.