KAPALUA, Maui » After Vijay Singh's practice round Monday at this week's $5.6 million Mercedes-Benz Championship, the Big Fijian told  a PGA Tour media official that he was withdrawing from the Sony Open in Hawaii.

Singh gave no reason for his decision not to play in the first full-field event of the 2009 season that will be held next week at Waialae, but several sources confirmed yesterday that a knee injury is to blame. He will undergo surgery to repair a torn meniscus and will be out five weeks.

The 45-year-old is paired with defending Mercedes champion Daniel Chopra in tomorrow's final group of the 33-man field and is scheduled to play here on the hilly Plantation Course despite the injury.

While the top four players in the world—Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson and Padraig Herrington—are not here on Maui, seven of the world's best 15 are, including young guns Anthony Kim and Camilo Villegas. They are paired in the next-to-last group and will draw a lot of interest from Maui fans. Kim won his first tournament in college as a freshman at Oklahoma in 2004 at the Waikoloa Intercollegiate. All he remembered about the victory as an 18-year-old was, “;There was water, for some reason, yeah.”;

As for Singh, he won the Mercedes in 2007 and the Sony Open in 2005 and will be missed next week. Kim and Villegas have yet to commit to the Sony and have until Friday at noon to enter the Oahu event.