By Matt Slater BBC Sport at Wentworth

How much? Couples couldn't be lured to Wentworth by the cash

Successful, good looking and wealthy, professional golfer Fred Couples and supermodel Linda Evangelista have much in common - and neither of them will get out of bed for less than $10,000.

Except in Couples' case, it's a guaranteed �64,000.

For Couples is just one of many American golfers to say "thanks, but no thanks" to an invite to play in the World Match Play Championship this week.

It seems that in the US this autumnal fixture in the British golfing calendar would be better called the World May Play (But Probably Won't) Championship.

Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Davis Love, Chris DiMarco and, finally, Fred all passed on the chance to join an elite field at Wentworth's famous West Course.

Even the carrot of one of golf's richest purses - the winner takes home �1m - was not enough to tempt a single American player to cross the pond.

Live: World Match Play scores

And when Fiji's world number two Vijay Singh remembered he had somewhere else he needed to be this week, he RSVP-ed "sorry, can't make it" too.

As a result, there is a decidedly elastic interpretation of the phrase "elite field" in operation here. Give or take a couple of continentals and an Argentine, this is what a Commonwealth Games golf tournament would look like.

For loadsamoney sponsors HSBC - a supermodel of the banking world - this is a little disappointing. When you stump up the best part of �2.5m for prizes you're probably hoping for more punch for your pound.

Kenneth Ferrie is very nice bloke, a better than decent player and clearly big news for the Geordie journalist sitting behind me, but he is nobody except his mother's idea of a global golf star.

In modelling terms, he is more Next directory than Paris catwalk.

Perhaps they confused the WMP with that dangerous stuff their president keeps banging on about called WMD

Much the same could be said about Geoff Ogilvie - one of three Australians here - or Tim Clark - one of three South Africans in attendance.

So why are they here and not the likes of Tiger, Lefty and Veej?

Colin Montgomerie, who is never slow to comment on New World mores, speculated this week that it is because the American-based players think London is a security risk.

Perhaps they confused the WMP with that dangerous stuff their president keeps banging on about called WMD.

Michael Campbell wondered if it was because they wanted to rest before next week's Presidents Cup - the Ryder Cup-style US v Rest of World minus Europe - although he himself does not appear to have a problem with the extra work.

Whether the absentees are scared or lazy or both is unclear - maybe they just saw a better weather forecast for this week than I saw - but what is clear is that American golfers don't need much of an excuse not to leave America.

After all, they're Americans, only more so.

They live in a fresh-fluffy-towelled clubhouse called the PGA Tour, where the eggs Benedict is divine, the coffee fresh and the temperature never below 70. And they get paid handsomely to stay there.

Woods only visits these shores to play the Open, Mickelson is trying to copy Woods and does not like the cold anyway, and Singh is, well... nobody's sure what his excuse is this year.

Tiger Woods' shadow has cast a shadow over the event

The only one of golf's big four with a good reason for not playing is six-time champion Ernie Els, who is injured, but then you could argue that he only normally turns out because he can walk to the first tee from his house by the 16th green.

So who is here? Well, the best-ranked player in the field is Retief Goosen - very much the fifth Beatle to golf's fab four.

The South African will be delighted he made the effort, as he took the unfortunate Ferrie to the cleaners on Thursday morning and is a dead cert for his first appearance in the WMP's second round. Readers of the Newcastle Chronicle will get a blow-by-blow account tomorrow morning.

Goosen, in fact, is by far the field's most in-form player, as he has won three events in the last month or so.

With Scotland's Montgomerie, something of a Wentworth expert, making a first-round exit, his main opposition is likely to come from Campbell, the US Open champion, and English number one Luke Donald.

Any of those would be popular winners come Sunday, but how much sweeter would that victory be if it came in a field that truly reflected the cream of world golf?

But what can you do? If golf's supermodels can't be bothered, the best of the rest will have to do.

And anybody who remembers Couples' laughable television adverts for his clothing sponsor will know he's no Evangelista anyway.