McIlroy heads for Sun City

Barring a clash in next month's WGC-HSBC Champions, we may have to wait until next year to see Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods go head to head.

The Sun City resortWhen the Race to Dubai and the World Cup are over, the Holywood starlet will play for a $1.2m top prize in Sun City's Nedbank Golf Challenge rather than Tiger's clashing Chevron World Challenge in Los Angeles.

The reason McIlroy is not going to California is that he was ranked 24th in the world when the field was set in September and just missed out on an automatic place Tiger's 18-man wheelbarrow race.

Both events will be played from 3-6 December but instead of battling for $1.35m in America, McIlroy will have to make do with the chance to earn $1.2m at the Gary Player Country Club.

On the plus side for McIlroy and ISM, there will be just 12 players in South Africa compared to 18 in California and both tournaments will be awarding world ranking points.

There's even better news for McIlroy in terms of the field and he's facing far weaker opposition in South Africa, which had hoped to attract this season's major winners.

But Woods' event takes places a few weeks earlier than normal this year and a clash with the South African money-fest means that US Open winner Lucas Glover, Open champion Stewart Cink and US PGA champion YE Yang have opted to remain in the US.

Masters champion Angel Cabrera, who is sponsored by South African Airways, will presumably be announced as the star attraction when the Nedbank field is revealed on Wednesday.

So far, only defending champion Henrik Stenson and Sunshine Tour No 1 Richard Sterne have been confirmed while Woods has already announced a star-studded field.

Glover, Cink and Yang will joined by special invitees Anthony Kim and Mike Weir with the rest of the field filled out by the top available players from the world rankings on 20 September: Tiger Woods (1), Steve Stricker (2), Paul Casey (4), Kenny Perry (6), Padraig Harrington (8), Jim Furyk (9), Lee Westwood (11), Martin Kaymer (13), Vijay Singh (14), Sean O’Hair (15), Camilo Villegas (16), Zach Johnson (18) and Ian Poulter (20).