When sport is just not important

Horse racing has been suspended and golf is responding, albeit at the typically slow pace at which the game is played.

The US PGA Tour have cancelled tomorrow's first round of the American Express World Championship at The Bellerive Country Club on the west side of St Louis. Yet it is surely inconceivable that play of any kind will go ahead over the weekend.

There are logistical problems. Woods, the world No1, has arrived but 21 of the 67 players on the entry list, including his Ryder Cup team-mates Phil Mickelson, Davis Love and PGA champion David Toms, are stranded elsewhere, with their private jets grounded by the ban on all internal flights.

Jesper Parnevik, a member of the European team due to play against the United States later this month, is in stricken New York. But golfers, so blinkered and focused when they are playing for titles and purses like the £3 million on offer this week, are not without emotion.

It was etched into the face of Woods as he hurried from a practice round yesterday. Out on the course Joe Corless, a former FBI agent who is acting as Woods's bodyguard, informed the player of the terrorist attacks when he heard about them through a radio earpiece.

"This is a sad, sad day in America," said Woods. He has a multi-million dollar endorsement contract with American Express and expressed concern for the company's workers who on Monday had flown back to their office, situated in the shadow of the World Trade Centre, having earlier joined him in a golfing clinic here.

Woods's participation in next week's Lancombe Trophy in Paris is now in doubt and the Ryder Cup, due to start on 28 September, could become another sporting casualty of yesterday's outrage.

The US team to defend the trophy at The Belfry near Birmingham are booked on a charter plane set to cross the Atlantic next Sunday.

But team member Mark Calcavecchia who was Woods's practice partner at Bellerive, said: "I think you can forget about the Ryder Cup for a few months at least. My guess is it will be too soon after this tragedy for it to go ahead."

Calcavecchia, winner of the Open Championship at Troon in 1989, revealed the reaction among his playing group when they were first made aware of the scale of the attacks.

"Tiger and I were speechless," he said. "There were so many innocent people killed that you just cannot take it in. You feel so helpless, so upset, so outraged. I can't think about golf any more."

Stewart Cink, another member of the United States team, admitted: "I feel a lot less safe about flying to Britain now than I did 24 hours ago.

"I have a wife and two boys and I don't want to make them live without a husband and without a father just because I want to play in the Ryder Cup. It would be a huge target for any of America's enemies."

Former European Ryder Cup captain Mark James believes it would be "very difficultî to reschedule this year's tournament if it was postponed.

James, chairman of European Tours' tour committee, said: "I am not sure either team or either tour could manage to fit it into the schedules, that would be very difficult at such short notice.

"My feeling would be that if it did not go ahead this time, we would just wait until 2003 and carry on from there.î

Padraig Harrington, the Dubliner who is in Europe's team, said: "We're all shocked by what has happened, but for the American players especially it will be impossible to concentrate on playing golf."