Akron, Ohio: No one would have stopped Shiv Kapur for an autograph if not for the golf shoes on his feet and the caddie at his side as he walked towards the practice range at Firestone. Even some of the players at the Bridgestone Invitational wondered who he was.
Instead of checking out his swing -- a dead giveaway that Kapur was a player -- they looked on his bag for a name. That didn't help, either.
Kapur is a 24-year-old from New Delhi, polished and polite. He plays primarily on the Asian Tour, where his victory late last year in the Volvo Masters made him eligible for a World Golf Championship that included 48 of the top 50 in the world. He checked in at No 192.
But it's players like Kapur who make these different from run-of-the-mill PGA Tour events. With so much money on the PGA Tour, and so much global competition everywhere from Torrey Pines to Warwick Hills, the identity of the World Golf Championships now comes from players no one can identify.
"There are a lot of guys I've seen this week that I didn't know who they were," David Toms said. "But that's part of world golf now. And it is a World Golf Championship. More power to them. If they can qualify, everybody else on our tour has a chance to qualify, too."
A year ago, the mystery man was Mark Cayeux of Zimbabwe. He qualified for Firestone by winning the Tour Championship in South Africa, and his first trip to America was unforgettable. He barely had found his locker when the pairings were released, and Cayeux was in the first group off No 10 with Tiger Woods.
It wasn't nearly as nerve-racking for Kapur, nor was it his first trip to the United States. "I spent four years at Purdue," he said. "I'm a Midwestern boy."
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How he got from India to Purdue is another story, although it was amusing to hear Kapur tell how he expected to go a few months during the winter with limited golf, only to find out his first year that the ground didn't thaw until April. "It was a bit of a rude welcome," he said with a laugh. ''But it was OK. I was able to catch up on my studies.''
Kapur kept a bad start from getting worse with birdies on his last three holes in the first round for a 72, but that was his best score of the week. He wound up at 13-over 293 and finished 65th out of 78 players, earning $35,000.
His next stop is the European tour, with the ultimate goal of joining the PGA Tour. Chances are, you will hear from him again.
As for the international players with more cache -- Padraig Harrington, Colin Montgomerie, Thomas Bjorn, Trevor Immelman -- they have become part of the PGA Tour landscape. And they don't stand out at the World Golf Championships the way they once did.
There were 25 international players who had their PGA Tour cards in 1999, the first year of the World Golf Championships. Now there are 69 foreign players on the PGA Tour
Prize money was $7.5 million at Firestone. It was $6 million at the Wachovia Championship. There are times when it's hard to tell the difference between the two.
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