Montgomerie pulls out of Casio World Open

TOKYO—Eight-time European Order of Merit winner Colin Montgomerie has withdrawn from a Japanese men’s tournament where he would have encountered US teenage LPGA star Michelle Wie.
“Unfortunately, and sadly, I cannot participate in the event for my personal reasons,” Montgomerie said in a message distributed by the organisers of the 140 million yen (1.2 million dollars) Casio World Open in Kochi November 23-26.
The 43-year-old Scotsman, unrivalled by any other men in terms of global fame on the tournament’s list of invitees, did not elaborate on the reasons.
Wie, a 17-year-old Korean-American from Hawaii, will play with 101 men at the tournament, the organiers said.
The field will embrace 87 regulars on the Japanese tour and 15 invitees who included two foreigners, the 17-year-old Wie and Australian Won Joon Lee, 21, who scored the lowest score for an amateur in the 2005 and 2006 Japan Open.
Wie made her debut in Japan last year at the same cash-rich men’s tournament, failing to make the cut by one stroke after bogeying on the final two holes of the second round.
She has failed to make the cut in her six attempts on the US men’s premier tour PGA. sBut Wie made the cut in the SK Telecom Open on the Asian Tour last May and became the second woman to advance beyond the halfway mark at a men’s tournament in South Korea since Se Ri Pak in 2003.—Agencies