Posted by Jason Sobel
This week's WGC-CA Championship will feature one of the top fields all year. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and every other player in the World Ranking's top 50 (save for Justin Rose, who WD'd with a back injury) will take part in the festivities at Doral.
And then there are, well, the other guys.
Among the big names will be several players that even some of the most diehard golf fans won't recognize. (Here are the eligibility requirements, if you're so inclined.) Who are they? How did they get invited? And how will they fare? Let's break down some of less-heralded guys playing this week.
• John Bickerton. We almost heard a lot more from Bickerton, who was in the running for a spot on last year's European Ryder Cup team right up until the very end. But don't expect much from the Englishman this week; he's failed to reach the weekend in five consecutive European Tour events.
• Anton Haig. In our latest Experts' Predictions for this event, Golf World's John Antonini referred to the 20-year-old South African as a Springbok, which I took to mean he was either a big fan of March 21 and the change of the seasons, or he had some kind of Reebok apparel deal. Turns out it's just slang for South African, like calling someone from New Zealand a Kiwi. (Learn something new every day, huh?) The young Springbok (see, I can even use it in a sentence) is at Doral based largely on the strength of his victory at the star-studded Johnnie Walker Classic last month. Is he the next in a long line of great players (Bobby Locke, Gary Player, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen) from his home country? Perhaps we'll find out more this week.
• Louis Oosthuizen. I keep thinking this guy should be the son -- or at least a nephew -- of longtime player/commentator Peter Oosterhuis, but alas, they share only a love for the sport and the same four letters at the beginning of their surnames. Another young South African, Oosthuizen has won twice on the Sunshine Tour already this year. A veteran of two British Opens and one WGC event (last year's AmEx, which is this year's CA), he will be making his U.S. debut on the PGA Tour this week.
• Hennie Otto. Yet another young South African (anyone else sensing a pattern here?), Otto is currently third on the Sunshine Tour's Order of Merit (he's just behind Oosthuizen on both the money list and alphabetically). As Golf World's Ron Sirak reminded me yesterday, Otto was once on the leaderboard at a British Open, shooting an opening-round 68 at Royal St. George's in 2003 before finishing T-10.
• Charl Schwartzel. Last month, Schwartzel was the only player to forgo the Accenture Match Play Championship. His reasoning? He needed to play in that week's Sunshine Tour event -- and play well -- in order to secure his third career Order of Merit title on that tour, which would lead to even more starts in future WGC events. "It was a goal that I wanted to achieve, so I decided to stay and I just said to myself, you know, if I continue playing like I am, I'll probably have a few more Match Plays to play in," Schwartzel said on Tuesday. "But you don't get a chance to win the Order of Merit three times." He finished in third place that week, won the title and, as a result, will be playing at least a handful of times in the U.S. over the next year.
• Jeev Milkha Singh. The first (and only) of the players I've listed who actually is ranked within the world's top 50, Jeev Milkha may forever have to live in the shadows of the unrelated, but similarly named Vijay Singh. Amazingly enough, though, they are only two of 18 players named Singh to ever compete in a PGA Tour event. (And that doesn't even include Balbir Singh Verma or Singh Thind -- and no, I'm not making these names up.) I watched Jeev Milkha on the range at last month's Match Play and let's just say he has an unorthodox swing. And that's being kind. Big hitch at the top, kind of loopy. But hey, it works, so that's all that matters, right?
• Anthony Wall. If you see this name and say to yourself, "Oh sure, the guy who won the 2000 Alfred Dunhill Championship. I know that guy," then it may be time to switch off Golf Channel. The thing is, there's not much other reason to remember him, other than his fine T-11 finish at last year's British Open, which helped him to 13th on the Euro Tour's Order of Merit. By my count, this will only be his second PGA Tour event in the U.S.; he missed the cut in the PGA Championship last August.
