Columnist Victoria Sun: Invensys champ Andrade cries foul when snubbed by Masters

Victoria Sun

Wednesday, April 4, 2001 | 10:29 a.m.

Victoria Sun's golf column appears Wednesday. Reach her at 259-4078 or victoria@lasvegassun.com

The 2000 Invensys Classic winner Billy Andrade was furious when he learned last month he would not be invited to play in this year's Masters.

Why?

Because guys such as Toshi Izawa, Eduardo Romero and Pierre Fulke did get into the field.

There are 18 clear-cut categories that determine who's in and who's out of the Masters -- no secretive selection committee or complicated BCS-like ranking system.

Former Masters champions (no matter how old), the top 40 finishers from last year's PGA Tour money list, the U.S. Amateur champion and runner-up and the British Amateur champion are among those who qualify for the Masters.

Andrade isn't upset about that.

He's indignant because golfers in the top 50 of the year-end World Golf Ranking and golfers in the top 50 of the World Golf Ranking four weeks before the Masters met the criteria, while he and other PGA Tour winners of last year didn't.

Two years ago, Masters officials decided to reward those with higher world rankings by extending invites instead of inviting those who had simply won PGA Tour events, which is why Andrade has cried foul.

The way the World Golf Ranking works, a winner of a European PGA Tour or PGA Tour of Japan event often gets more points than a golfer who finishes in the top 15 of a PGA Tour event, which would arguably have a stronger field.

To Andrade and others, the rankings clearly favor international players who don't have to grind it out every week on the PGA Tour.

"It's an invitational," Invensys Classic and Las Vegas Senior Classic tournament manager Charlie Baron said of the Masters. "It's not an event sanctioned every week.

"It's like the Opens, the PGA Championships. They have their criteria to enter the event and that's what they go on."

In other words, fair or not, it's just the way it is.

Baron attended his first Masters in 1980.

He said the international flavor of the event is what makes it and the other majors special.

"That's what establishes it as a major," Baron said. "All the majors have an international appeal where it brings players in from all over the world.

"You see some players that you don't normally get to see. I don't have any problem with that."

Of course Baron would love it if the Invensys Classic champion automatically received an invitation to the Masters the following year, but that is unrealistic.

"It's an event run strictly by the club," Baron acknowledged. "They set the rules.

"It would have been nice to have your champion in every event, but it doesn't work that way for the Open either."