Riviera field is very worldly

Is this global golf thing spinning on its axis, or what? That’s probably as good an explanation that while three of the top four players in the world rankings are from the United States -- Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson -- only 13 other U.S. players are in the top 50.

So there is a question how to mark the occasion this week. Nobody ran up a flag or hummed his national anthem, but the biggest international stars of golf have arrived at Riviera Country Club and will make their 2007 PGA Tour debut today in the $5.2-million Nissan Open.

It’s a heavyweight lineup of Ernie Els and Retief Goosen of South Africa and Sergio Garcia of Spain.

Mickelson said he has some ideas on how they might do. “I’m hoping that they’re rusty,” he said.

That’s possible, but not likely, since the 2007 European Tour actually began last November, so even though this is the first tournament in the U.S. for the so-called Big 3, they haven’t just been waiting around.

Els has three top-10 finishes in his first three events on the European Tour and was second at Dubai. Goosen has played five European Tour events and won the Qatar Masters, to go along with three top fives. Garcia tied for 14th at Abu Dhabi and tied for 19th at the Qatar Masters.

International players have won the last four times at Riviera, and six of the last 10, including South African Rory Sabbatini in 2006.

Els, who won the 1999 Nissan Open, said he hadn’t studied the international players’ recent dominance of the generally wet proceedings at Riviera, but offered one suggestion. “The weather?”

He hasn’t studied the rankings either, but he is not surprised by them.

“A lot of the guys in the top 50 now, I think you’ll find they’ve been around a long time. Even the youngsters. You look at Sergio, Luke [Donald], Adam [Scott], Trevor [Immelman], all of these guys have been on tour maybe six or seven years now.

“A lot of foreign players play the U.S. tour. Over here, we play for a lot more money, so that draws a lot more players. It means the depth of the field becomes a lot stronger than anywhere else in the world. And subsequently, you have a stronger Tour, but you’ve got a much broader base of players from around the world. That’s basically why those players have infiltrated the top 50, so to speak.”

Garcia slipped out of the top 10 to 13th in the rankings after a winless 2006 that included top fives at the PGA Championship and the British Open -- both won by Woods.

He said he’s rusty, trying to play his way into his game, knowing that it’s a long season.

Even so, there’s no question of what Garcia, who turned 27 last month, is really searching for. He said he’s not kicking himself for not winning a major title yet.

“I’m kicking myself for not winning three or four by now,” he said. “I’ve had my chances. I should have had that many. But my goal this year is to improve, play well and put myself in contention and keep having chances.”

It’s a Tiger-less Riviera this week, and much has been made of his absence, even though he has missed playing here only twice since his first full professional year in 1997. Els took time out to pay homage to top-ranked Woods.

“I think back in 2004, you were talking about the Big 3, I think it was myself, Phil and Tiger, or Vijay and Phil or something. And then it became the Big 5. Now, it’s going to become just a one-man show again.”

But not this week. There are 11 of the top 13-ranked players in the field, all hunting not for Tiger, but the $936,000 winner’s share.

With Woods missing from the field last week at Pebble Beach, Mickelson tied the tournament record of 20 under and won by a record-tying five shots.

Goosen overslept the last time he was supposed to play at Riviera, missed his pro-am tee time and was disqualified from the tournament. He joked that he brought six alarm clocks this week. Goosen could be a factor at Riviera because he is an expert on quick greens, and that comes into play if the greens remain firm. That would be something of an unusual occurrence in this typically wet event. One side event: The rough is not much of a factor, stunted because of last month’s cold snap.

As for Els, he’s 37, he hasn’t won a major since the 2002 British Open or a PGA Tour event since 2004, finding it difficult to come back from a knee injury 17 months ago when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament while on vacation with his family in the Mediterranean. He said he might have come back too quickly.

“You know, I didn’t want to feel like the injury was that big a factor in my life,” Els said. “But it definitely was a bigger factor in my golf swing than I expected and it took a long period of time to recover physically for the golf swing and walking, and week-in and week-out playing the game.”

Els said he developed some bad habits in his game and that hurt his performance as well.

But it’s a new start to a new year on his adopted tour, so Els is ready. A generation ago, two players -- Nick Faldo of England and Greg Norman of Australia -- dominated pro golf.

The first time the Official World Golf Rankings were published, before the 1986 Masters, the top three players were Europeans -- Bernhard Langer of Germany, Seve Ballesteros of Spain and Sandy Lyle of Scotland -- but there were 31 U.S. players in the top 50.

That’s no longer the trend, and may actually be a complete reversal. Or maybe not. The opportunity is there and new trendsetters may apply beginning today at Riviera.

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thomas.bonk@latimes.com