Well the PGA Tour is set to get underway starting tomorrow at the Mercedes-Benz Championships at Hawaii’s Kapalua Resort, with at least four of its top players who will not be attending. At the start on Thursday, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Retief Goosen, and Padraig Harrington have sent their regrets that they will not be attending the Mercedes Championship.

According to defending champion Stuart Appleby, he “is not sure why they’re not playing. I guess they don’t want to play. I guess they’re too tired or it’s too far”. Appleby later went on to remark, “maybe they’re afraid”.

According to commentaries on Golfdigest.com and Foxsports.com a few people have either commented that they understand that for various reasons these four players will miss the Mercedes Championship, while others have stated that these four players should be critized for missing it at the start of the season.

However, it has long been known that Woods’ father Earl has been feeling ill, and leaving others to speculate if he plans on spending time with his family instead of competing. However, Tiger has announced that he really has not had an off-season, while spending some of the off-season competing in events in China and Japan - “a total of five events in five weeks in three different countries”. Woods has previously missed the Mercedes Championship in 2003, when he was recovering from knee surgery.

However, Mickelson has declined to attend the event for the past five years in a row; not since 2001. Mickelson released the statement that he needs time with his family and has previously asked the Tour for a reduced schedule.

Still what many of the commentaries fail to do is mention the players that will show up, with many of them being new faces to Kapalua, or that Appleby has the potential to win again three years in a row. Concentrating more on these instead of speculating on the reason for the “no shows” will better increase the interest of golf fans.