Top players not driven by money anymore

— -- PGA Tour players aren't competing less often. It just seems that way because now when they make their playing schedule, money is literally no object. When guys like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson skip the season-opening Mercedes Championships, as both are doing in 2006, or the season-ending Tour Championship, as Mickelson did this year, they are turning their backs on free money -- events with a last-place payoff of more than $66,000. But that's not enough to pay for what is in increasingly short supply for the top players -- time. Where they play is determined by convenience, not cash. The FedEx Cup, the big-bang, big-bucks finish proposed by the tour to end the season starting in 2007, might just make things worse. Many have speculated that the FedEx Cup concept will result in top players skipping the fall events that come after the Tour Championship. But I envision something else -- stars extending their winter vacations a bit longer and passing on more early West Coast events. The FedEx Cup will demand an intense playing schedule from the British Open in mid-July through the Tour Championship in mid-September. Time off has to come somewhere, and in skipping the Mercedes, Woods and Mickelson have given a hint which stretch of the schedule will suffer. Winter used to be for rest; now, it's the time for Silly Season events, for overseas appearance fees ( Vijay Singh is playing the Abu Dhabi Open in January) and for the several days a year players owe to their endorsement partners, from whom they earn even more money than they make on the golf course. Three of the top four players in the World Ranking -- Woods, Mickelson and Retief Goosen -- are skipping the Mercedes next month. Padraig Harrington, No. 17, also is staying home. The four players who declined their invitations to Kapalua earned a combined $25.3 million in 2005. It's almost as if the PGA Tour has gotten too rich for its own good -- or at least for the good of some of its tournaments. The big names aren't playing fewer events. They're just using different criteria to pick the ones they enter. Woods made 20 PGA Tour starts in 2000 and 21 in 2005. Mickelson played 23 tour events in 2000 and 21 this year. The number of tour starts in 2000 and 2005 for Singh (26 and 30), Davis Love III (25 and 24), Jim Furyk (25 and 26) and Sergio Garcia (16 and 20) also stayed about the same. The stars are playing about as much as they ever were, but the prize money isn't what lures them. Four other top-10 players -- Ernie Els, Adam Scott, Colin Montgomerie and Chris DiMarco -- will not be at the Mercedes because they did not win on the PGA Tour in 2005. Yet they earned a combined $13.8 million worldwide. In fact, not to pick on DiMarco, but since his last PGA Tour win -- the 2002 Phoenix Open -- he has collected $10.5 million in prize money. Maybe this is what the PGA Tour had in mind all along -- surrendering to football not just in the fall but all the way through the Super Bowl in early February. Woods and Mickelson should be at the Mercedes, but, obviously, a week at a plush Hawaiian resort and the chance to make $1.06 million -- or a guaranteed $66,000 -- isn't as appealing as it used to be. Their absence is an ominous occurrence a year out from the new schedule, and a disturbing hint at what might be yet to come. Ron Sirak is the executive editor of Golf World magazine. His book, " Every Shot Must Have a Purpose : How GOLF54 Can Make You a Better Player ," written with Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott, is now available.