You won't hear the powers-that-be concurring, but the Accenture World Matchplay - the first World Golf Championship event of the year - was nothing short of a fiasco. Ernie Els knows it. The world number two has called for a dramatic change in the tournament's format, yet the only likely alteration for next year's event is one that has already been decided: to move the event back in the calendar.

Els, the world number two, believes the three-year-old event requires major surgery. Speaking in Melbourne before flying on to Hawaii for this week's Mercedes Championship - where the likes of Tiger Woods, David Duval and Phil Mickelson (all absentees in Australia) make their seasonal debuts - the South African recommended that the event find a different date, scrap its knockout format and abandon its third-place play-off.

The date change has been confirmed already. Next year's matchplay will return to La Costa in southern California - where Darren Clarke last year beat Woods in the final - and will be staged at the end of February, making it the last event in the West Coast Swing.

But the other changes are unlikely to happen. Indeed, US Tour commissioner Tim Finchem acknowledged that they "underestimated the difficulty of the date" in Australia, but felt that a move to a "more conducive" date would bring out a better response from the top players.

"There is no question in my mind that the world golf championships, over the next five years, will attract in my estimation 95 to 97 per cent of the eligible players," he said.

Els' other proposals simply won't happen. In assessing the format, Els said: "Why not have a tournament where everyone plays for four days in a round-robin format, then the guys who win most games play in the finals after that?"

His suggestion is one that was taken on board by the organisers of the Dunhill Cup in its early days (although that team event is defunct), but it overlooks the fact that the lure of matchplay golf, especially for spectators and television viewers, is the man-to-man nature of combat with defined winners and losers; so that proposal would appear to be a non-starter.

Finchem, in fact, stated that the matchplay formula was here to stay. "Every player I have talked to for three years loves this competition, they love to play matchplay. It's a unique opportunity for them to play it now that they're professionals. They want to play."

And Els' other proposal, to scrap the third-place play-off, effectively a meaningless match, is also unlikely to happen primarily because of the demands of television.

The bottom line is that the International Federation (comprising all the major tours) got it wrong on this occasion, mainly because of the timing of the event - but also its location, so far from the power bases in the States and Europe, particularly for a matchplay event in which half of the participants exited after the first day.

Twelve months ago, only Jumbo Ozaki from the world's top 64 was an absentee, but on this occasion, six of the world's top 10 stayed away.

One player who isn't complaining about the event's timing or location is Sweden's Pierre Fulke. Nine months before the Ryder Cup, his is the first name that Europe's captain, Sam Torrance, has had to pencil on to his team-sheet.

Fulke, who was runner-up to American Steve Stricker, has jumped to a career-high number 32 in the world rankings after his performance in Melbourne. Torrance has compared him to American golfer Loren Roberts, known on the US Tour as the "Boss of the Moss", because of his putting prowess, and Fulke's takings from the matchplay have pushed him ahead of Lee Westwood in the European qualifying table and, even at this juncture, he has sufficient points to guarantee him a Ryder Cup debut at The Belfry in September.

"Getting onto the Ryder Cup team was obviously a goal for this season . . . and now I can get on with preparing for it properly and just hopefully have a good season again," said Fulke.

Since recovering from wrist and back injuries - which forced him to spend the first half of last year away from the circuit - Fulke has moved up to a different level: he won the Scottish PGA last September and held off Clarke in a head-tohead finale to the Volvo Masters.

Fulke will also have to change drivers for his debut appearance in the US Masters at Augusta in April. The Callaway ERC is allowed on the European Tour and in Australia, but it is illegal in the United States. However, he has been experimenting with the company's new VFTs.

Stricker's win, incidentally, jumped him from 91st in the world rankings to 47th. Before his call-up to the field for Melbourne, Stricker had planned to open his season at this week's Tucson Open. Now, he plans to give that event a miss.

However, one player who doesn't intend to miss Tucson is Richie Coughlan. The Birr man will make his seasonal debut at that satellite tournament which runs against the Mercedes Championship, an event that is confined to last year's winners on the US Tour.

And it's an indication of the riches available on the American circuit that the Tucson Open - despite the fact that the tour's top players will be battling it out in Hawaii - still offers $3 million in prizemoney, with $540,000 for the winner.