NZ to miss World Golf Championships

New Zealand will not contest the World Cup of Golf in Portugal next month.

The country's absence at the teams event is due to the unavailability of its two leading players.

Both world No 14 Michael Campbell and world No 103 David Smail have other commitments that clash with the event in Portugal.

Campbell will be in Hawaii contesting the Grand Slam of Golf, which overlaps with the World Cup on November 17-20, while Smail, despite being troubled by a back injury, is committed to playing in Japan, where he is based.

The absence of Campbell and Smail meant New Zealand would have had to qualify for the World Cup at one of two tournaments in Mexico and Malaysia this week.

New Zealand Professional Golfers' Association chief executive Garth Stirrat said there was insufficient time to get other players to either of the tournaments.

World No 1 Tiger Woods and PGA champion Phil Mickelson are among eight Americans who have turned down invitations to the World Cup.

The US are to be represented by Stewart Cink and Zach Johnson.

Under World Cup rules, the leading 18 available players of different nationalities in the world rankings on September 19 automatically qualified their countries for this year's event.

Each of those players could select their partners, as long as they were also ranked in the world's top 100. If that was not possible, the next highest-ranked golfer was offered the spot.

New Zealand hosted the World Cup at Gulf Harbour in 1998 when they finished third, then lost a four-way playoff in Japan in 2001.

"Back then you tended to see the best players from each country playing," Stirrat said.

"That's not the case now.

"The World Cup as it stands now is not a World Cup any more. The best players from each country do not play in the event unless they choose to.

"Determination of places is on the basis of world rankings as opposed to countries selecting their best players."

A dilution of the World Cup playing ranks is reflected in the United States team, containing Stewart Cink and Zach Johnson, after eight players -- among them Woods and Mickelson -- declined the opportunity to take part in Portugal.

Stirrat understood it would be the first time New Zealand had missed the World Cup since the event began in 1953.

He believed changes needed to be made scheduling for it to be of any consequence.

"It needs to be scheduled so all the best players in the world will be available and countries need to have the opportunity to select their best players."

Campbell had flagged his unavailability early but Smail's status was not known until last weekend.

That left the NZPGA no time to organise two players to compete in either of the World Cup qualifying tournaments this week in Malaysia or Mexico.

Other teams named this week included Australia (Mark Hensby and Peter Lonard), Denmark (Anders Hansen and Soren Hansen) and India (Jyoti Randhawa and Arjun Atwal).

Defending champions England will be represented by world No 15 Luke Donald, who chose fellow Ryder Cup player David Howell.

- NZPA