KAPALUA, Maui -- The NBA players are going back to work, but you won't see any of the PGA Tour players ever going on strike, said Mark O'Meara, golf's player of the year. Pro golfers
won’t be next
to go on strikeFor one thing, the golfers are playing for a lot more money than ever before.
"It's a nice problem to have," said O'Meara, who won both the Masters and British Open last year. The PGA Tour purse has increased 37 percent to a $131.7 million payoff this year.
"Golf has grown tremendously in the last three, four years," O'Meara said. "Growing pains? Probably. But the direction we are heading is wonderful."
And those in his profession are good role models, according to O'Meara. "The sponsors see that, the television people see that. I don't see players going on strike anytime soon."
Still, it's not the money, added David Duval, who won a record $2.59 million in 1998.
"For one reason or another, we are provided with an opportunity to make a living playing a game," Duval said.
It'd be nice if a lot of NBA players would express the same attitude.
"The money is fine when you're done, but you don't think about it when you're playing," Duval added.
STILL, you'll find no one in the elite 30-player field here for the Mercedes Championships that began today at the Plantation Course sniffing at the $486,000 top prize.
But showing that it's not the money, about a third of the field won't be playing in the Sony Open next week at the Waialae Country Club even though it's a short 30-minute interisland hop to Oahu.
Duval, for one, is playing.
O'Meara and Furyk -- who both won at Waialae in the Hawaiian Open -- will be. But O'Meara said that tournaments shouldn't be judged as having a strong or weak field if some of the PGA's top players aren't entered.
"There are more good players today than anytime in history. Most guys tend to play in tournaments they like and courses that suit their game," he said.
Which should tip you off why O'Meara is staying in the 50th State for two weeks. He won the Kapalua International in 1985 and the Hawaiian Open early that year. Ditto Furyk, who also won at Kapalua and Waialae.
"You pick and choose not because of a big course," Furyk said. "I play the courses and tournaments in which I feel I can do well."
OF course, it's now a totally different atmosphere here. This time, the money's official and the players are more serious than during the week of the postseason Kapalua International, when it was all fun and games.
"It's a different week. You hung out by the pool, played with the kids then. But still, it's Maui. It's hard not to have fun. Maui is probably my favorite place of all the places I've been," Furyk said.
What they all agreed on, though, was that there's not much of an off-season in golf anymore.
"It's more like a continuation," said Duval, who plans on taking the next two weeks off.
"It wasn't much time off," Furyk added. "I like to play 11 months and take December off. But with the Presidents Cup, there wasn't much free time off last month."
"It's more of a 12-month sport now," said O'Meara, who said he never took off enough time to let all that happened in 1998 soak in.
"I'll be 42 next week. The way I look at it, what happened last year was a big bonus. Let's see what 1999 holds."
He'd like nothing better than to win the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship to become only the fifth player to win all four majors.
"That'd be be cool," said O'Meara, who must be hanging around Tiger Woods too much.