Something weird and wonderful is happening on the US Tour, and it is not simply the fact that tournament purses these days are packed to bulging point with more greenbacks than ever. Although the tour has traditionally welcomed foreign players - viewing their addition as a vital ingredient in hyping the American circuit as number one in the world - the difference this year is that the invaders are plundering more than their share of the wealth.
With sponsors putting more money than ever into tournaments along with the additional revenue generated by huge hikes in television rights, players on the US Tour have never competed for more money than in 2002 - and the foreign players are not letting the American players have it all their own way.
In fact, Nick Price's win in the Colonial tournament in Fort Worth, Texas, on Sunday maintained an astonishing sequence of three successive wins on the US Tour by non-American golfers, following on from those of KJ Choi and Shigeki Maruyama in the previous two weeks. The invasion, however, started as early as the season-opening Mercedes Championship, when Sergio Garcia won, and it has been so consistent that Price's victory actually constituted the 10th so far this year by international players.
The financial windfall is not to be sneezed at either. Of the top 10 players on the US money list, six of them - Olazabal (fourth) ($1,772,273); Price (fifth) ($1,636,333); Retief Goosen (seventh) ($1,608,795); Vijay Singh (eighth) ($1,593,613); Shigeki Maruyama (ninth) ($1,593,613) and Ernie Els (10th) ($1,488,791) - are foreign players. Indeed, the rewards are so good that no less than 10 non-American players have already won over $1 million in prize-money so far this season, the aforementioned sextet joined in the millionaire stakes by Garcia, Craig Perks, KJ Choi and Stephen Ames.
Of all the wins by a foreign player on the US Tour so far this year, the one by Price - who had a closing round 67 for a 72-holes total of 13-under-par 267 in the Colonial to finish five shots ahead of US PGA champion David Toms and Kenny Perry - was arguably the most popular of all.
It was the 17th US Tour win by Price and his first since the 1998 FedEx St Jude Classic - but a further indication of how the money stakes have risen is that the cheque for $774, 000 constituted the biggest payday of the Zimbabwean's career.
The win brought Price over $16 million in career earnings on the US Tour and, in a further extension of the money game, ensures that he will win over $1 million on tour for the ninth time in his career. Although no less than seven players in their 40s won on the US Tour last season, Price was the first fortysomething to win this year.
Yet, there were times when Price - now 45 - wondered if he could ever win again on the tour as he watched younger and stronger golfers come to dominate. Although it was only four years since his last tournament success, Price admitted that it felt "like 10 years . . . (but) that self-doubt has been cast away now. There's no pressure any more on me to win because I've proven it to myself."
On Sunday, there was a sense of deja vu when he recorded back-to-back bogeys on the fifth, where he three-putted, and the sixth, where his drive plugged just below the lip of a bunker. "I had a chat with myself walking down the seventh," he said. "I said, 'I am not going to make any more mistakes. That's it. I am just going to make birdies and pars'. And I did. Sometimes you just reach deep down."
PRIZES FOR EXPORT
(Non-American winners on the US Tour 2002)
Sergio Garcia (Spain) Mercedes Championship; Jose Maria Olazabal (Spain) Buick Invitational; Ernie Els (South Africa) Genuity Championship; Ian Leggett (Canada) Tucson Open; Craig Perks (New Zealand) Players Championship; Vijay Singh (Fiji) Houston Open; Retief Goosen (South Africa) BellSouth Classic; KJ Choi (Korea) Compaq Classic; Shigeki Maruyama (Japan) Byron Nelson Classic; Nick Price (Zimbabwe) MasterCard Colonial.
