Peter Williams: We have to find a way in to the World Cup

Now let's be honest. The World Cup of Golf is just a grand name for another end of year, big money splash for some of the world's best to get extra cash for Christmas. This World Cup is far from the pinnacle of the game.

Since it was folded into the World Golf Championship events five years ago, it's become even more of an oddity because of the unique format of alternate shot foursomes and two ball, best ball.

The best you can say about it is that, because 24 countries play two-man teams, some very modest players from emerging golf nations get the chance to mix it with some of the real world stars.

However, despite four million greenbacks on the line in Portugal from November 17 to 20, most of the world's best are not bothering. Sergio Garcia is the only one in the world's top 10 who is. The reasons for the rest staying away are the usual - holiday, a better offer elsewhere and winning the World Cup is not that big a deal.

Countries exempt from qualifying are those with players ranked in the world's top 100 - but only if that player elects to take part. Michael Campbell is the only New Zealander in that position. But ever since he won the US Open, he's never been a starter at the World Cup.

It finishes in Portugal two days before the Grand Slam tournament Campbell has entered with Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. That's a two-round midweek fun fest for Campbell and the year's other major championship winners and a million bucks split four ways.

The next New Zealander on the world rankings was David Smail at 128th. So if New Zealand wanted a team in the World Cup, two players had to be found to go to a qualifying tournament starting Thursday of last week, October 6, in either Malaysia or Mexico.

The PGA of New Zealand's executive director, Garth Stirratt, had the task of finding two players who'd be prepared to fund their own way to one of those events. Smail's on a break at home from the Japan Tour and can't play in Portugal anyway, Craig Perks couldn't be contacted and Stephen Scahill was playing in Europe.

By the time Stirrat said he'd established all that, entries for the qualifying tournament had closed.

That's riled lower-ranked New Zealand professionals Richard Lee and Mahal Pearce.

Lee, currently 571 in the world and the eighth ranked New Zealander, is an Asian Tour player and would have loved to at least try and qualify. For guys at his level, the chance to play in a World Cup is a rare opportunity on the real international stage. That's quite apart from the $US20,000 minimum prize money.

Lee has a point. But the real problem lies with who's supposed to be looking after the interests of tournament-playing professional golfers from this part of the world. Ultimately the responsibility comes back to the PGA of New Zealand.

When our best players are all based in other countries, it can be the devil's own job trying to track them down and get a commitment to play an end-of-year event amidst numerous tournament clashes.

But the World Cup, for all its faults and diminished status, is still a globally-televised event offering big money and the PGA of New Zealand should be making every effort to get a New Zealand team in.

Famous names like Garcia, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Padraig Harrington will be there. So will Mardan Mamat and Lam Chih Bing from Singapore. There are also combinations from Venezuela, and Mexico. New Zealand players deserved a chance to be somewhere in that mix.