By Monty Cook
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 27, 1999; Page D4

Only eight of the top 25 PGA Tour money-winners are entered in this week's Kemper Open, which highlights a growing trend that has made an issue of the strength of tournament fields. Some top players are limiting their schedules and taking advantage of huge appearance fees to play in non-PGA Tour events.

But PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said yesterday that gauging the field on money-winners alone would be foolish. Players such as Tom Kite, Paul Azinger and John Daly – all of whom are entered in the Kemper – are not near the top of the 1999 money list or world rankings, but they are well-known players who draw fans to tournaments.

"If you're looking at just the top 25 [on the money list]," Finchem said, "you're leaving out a lot of good players – players who have made the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup teams in the past and other players who have marquee value."

The Kemper Open, which begins today at TPC at Avenel, includes 22 golfers who have won at least one tour tournament in the past two seasons, plus the three winners of the four major championships in 1998 – Mark O'Meara, Lee Janzen and Vijay Singh.

In dealing with tournament fields and their impact on television and corporate sponsorships, the PGA Tour is monitoring the weekly events carefully, Finchem said.

"For TV ratings and corporations paying an awful lot of money, they want to see the players who are playing well right now," Finchem said.

"We owe it to those groups to have the best fields playing. If a particular event doesn't draw as many fans or pull in strong TV ratings, we'll ask the players to help us out.

"If a particular player hasn't played in an event for a while or the event is struggling, we might ask him to commit to playing."

Finchem said there are three incentives for the game's top players to commit to and play in more than the minimum 15 events required by the tour: increased purses, individual player goals and the PGA Tour's retirement package.

But the lure of money and a strong retirement package are less of an issue to the game's most talented players because they can pull income from other sources.

Tiger Woods – who has been one of the top money-winners in each of his three seasons on tour and earns millions annually from endorsements – reportedly received a $1 million appearance fee to play in last weekend's Deutsche Bank Open in Germany, then won the tournament.

While he acknowledges the occasional high-profile defection to tournaments outside the United States, Finchem denies it represents a problem for the tour.

"In the past two years, we've had fewer players file a conflicting event request," Finchem said. "David Duval has only done it twice in the past four years."

It happened most recently when Duval and Woods were paired in a made-for-TV match in August. The PGA Tour exercises great control over its players and their marketing by mandating a release fee for those participating in non-tour TV events. The August match of two of the world's top players will net the tour a $1 million release fee, which was paid by the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif. The club will host the matchup.

And when top players miss an event, as Duval and Woods did with last weekend's Colonial, other players have a chance to break through. That was the case with Washington native Olin Browne, who won the Fort Worth event on Sunday.

"It does allow other players to move forward," Finchem said.

"Our strategy is to increase the number of 'stars.' Thirty-five years ago, you might have four, five, six or seven stars playing in an event. Now, we've got 60 or 70 guys who are capable of winning."