Scheduling can become a nightmare

The European Tour is playing the Austrian Open at the moment and I happen to be the defending champion. However, because of some personal reasons, I am unable to defend my title.

I am fast approaching a very crucial stretch of tournaments. I have a few things on my mind, which includes ensuring that I secure my card on the PGA Tour for 2010 and also do well in the European Tour's Race to Dubai. If I do these two, I guess one of the bigger goal of the season will be taken care of automatically - to climb higher and possibly into the top-20 of the World Rankings.

It's going to very busy last three months of the year for me. I have October to sort out the PGA Tour and November for the Race to Dubai. It would mean I will be playing almost every week from the first week of October when I tee up at the Turning Stone Resort Championship.

That is one of the reasons I opted out of the Austrian Open this year - I needed to finish a few things back home in India, and this is the only couple of weeks I will get.

I am facing a similar predicament for the Indian Open, which is my own National open. Not just that, the tournament is sponsored by Hero Honda, a company that was my personal sponsor and great supporters when I was going through one of my worst phases as a professional golfer.

The Indian Open is scheduled for October 8-11, but for me to come all the way from the US for just one week and then go back again - I don't know if it will be feasible.

So, as you can very well see, scheduling can sometimes become a huge nightmare for us professional golfer. There are expectations from organisers and fans which can become very difficult to fulfil at times. Now just imagine how it must be for Tiger Woods! Even though he does not have to think about cards and world rankings, he will have to play more than 52 weeks in a year to make everyone happy.

Next week, it's the Vivendi Trophy with Seve Ballesteros on the European Tour and the FedEx Cup finale - the Tour Championship - on the PGA Tour. I will keep my eyes on both.I am hoping that Seve will be fit and present at his tournament.

From what I hear from some of my Spanish friends on the Tour, the legend is making good progress from the multiple surgeries to remove the tumour. He is an absolute favourite of mine.

As for the Tour Championship, the biggest question in everyone's mind is will someone be able to prevent Tiger from winning his second FedEx Cup. It's going to be great fun at East Lake.

Jeev Milkha Singh is a three-time champion on the European Tour.