In the wake of some serious outbursts of Tigermania during the climactic stage of the World Cup here last Sunday, there is profound disappointment among Asian nations who feel betrayed by changes in the tournament. After playing their part as hosts, they believe that they are about to be brushed aside.
"It was about the only international tournament in which Asia had a good representation," said an official from Singapore. "It was the only time the weak country had an opportunity to play with the world's best. It brought the haves and have-nots of golf together."
With the field reduced from 32 to 24 nations and only six qualifiers worldwide for next year's staging in Buenos Aires, the belief is that Asia's representation will fall from five to three. "They should be fair to Asia and show us that they support what we are trying to do for the game," said Philippines player Marciano Pucay. "Five places for 21 Asian countries (Malaysia got in as hosts) is a fair figure: three is not."
For the record, the Asian performances in this staging were: 7 Japan; 12 Republic of Korea; 17 Myanmar; 18 Philippines; 26 Malaysia; 30 Taiwan. Best individuals were Mamoru Osanai of Japan, who was tied third and Wook-Soon Kang of Korea, who was sixth.
Asians are predicting that while strong countries like Japan and Taiwan will survive, nations like Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines may not. Yet when the World Cup was in the gift of the International Golf Association, they were happy to go to such venues as Tokyo (1957 and 1966), Singapore Island (1969), Bangkok (1975), Manila (1977), Jakarta (1983), China (1995) and now Malaysia (1999).
The Asians see themselves as having basically two options. They can lobby the new controllers of the tournament, the Federation of World Tours, for an exclusively Asian qualifying section. Or they could simply concentrate on improving the performances of their players within the Asian Tour, so that they rise in the world rankings and qualify by right.
By comparison, the problems facing the Irish are decidedly modest. But it will interesting, nonetheless, to see how the qualifying procedure develops, now that the tournament's prize fund is being doubled to $3 million. Darren Clarke and Padraig Harrington were to have been Ireland's pairing last weekend, but Clarke withdrew in Paul McGinley's favour, preferring to opt for two tournament appearances in Japan this month.
After their third-place finish on Sunday, following on a sixth-place in New Zealand last year and victory in 1997, McGinley said: "Obviously Padraig and myself enjoy playing together. When we won at Kiawah Island, Darren was kind enough to stand down so that we could defend the title in Auckland. But that was a once-off arrangement."
What it means, in effect, is that Clarke will remain Ireland's number one choice for Buenos Aires next year. And given that the winning team will be splitting $1 million, he couldn't reasonably be expected to stand down.
Meanwhile, the Irish can look back with pride on a tournament which effectively came to an end here on Sunday: in future, it will be played to a foursomes and fourball format.
In the event, Ireland were the only one of the home countries to win it twice - in 1960 and 1997. Wales captured it after a play-off with Scotland in Hawaii in 1987 and England had to wait until last year for their breakthrough. As for the Scots: the closest they came to victory was in that defeat by Wales, 12 years ago.
