This stop is all-inclusive

Foreign players at home at Doral

S.S.P. Chowrasia hopes he can raise his game at the CA Championship this weekend. (Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

DORAL, Fla. - In search of autographs, Christopher Kingston had a distinct advantage as he headed to the practice range yesterday at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa. All he had to do was follow his father under the ropes, which got him within arm's length of Vijay Singh and Aaron Baddeley.

When Singh and Baddeley gladly granted the request, it was a huge deal to the 10-year-old, though the young man's father let it be known who in the family was truly benefiting from the proceedings here at the CA Championship.

"Me," said James Kingston, flashing a grin. He was fully recovered from 19 1/2 hours of flights from his native South Africa, and as the 42-year-old Kingston scanned the practice range, he explained why.

"Obviously, to be able to compete with the best players in the world is awesome," said Kingston, whose inclusion in the field hits at the flavor of this $8 million World Golf Championship event. This it is not your typical PGA Tour stop, with all your favorite household names and veteran players you've come to know. This week is for Kingston and fellow South Africans Andrew McLardy and Louis Oosthuizen, just as it's for Thailand's Chapchai Nirat, Germany's Martin Kaymer, China's Wen-chong Liang, and the Hanson brothers of "Slap Shot" fame.

OK, strike that last entry, because Anders Hansen, Soren Hansen, and Peter Hanson are golfers from Denmark, Denmark, and Sweden, respectively, and not the guys who co-starred alongside Paul Newman in the classic movie. But like Kingston & Co., they are here at Doral, even if their golf accomplishments have been played out far from the bright lights and mega-purses of the American PGA Tour.

This week, it's about world-class players with major résumés and a heavy dose of foreign flavor.

"It's the most international of our World Golf Championship events," said Ross Berlin, senior vice president of player affairs for the PGA Tour. "Part of what the PGA Tour has done very well is establish an international footprint through TV broadcasts, and when we have [international] players, it spikes interest greatly."

Of the 79 players who'll tee it up tomorrow at the famed "Blue Monster," only 41 are card-carrying members of the PGA Tour and only 21 are American-born players. Those are hardly numbers we are used to, but then again, the CA Championship isn't supposed to be like every other week on the PGA Tour. It's a championship designed to embrace the fact that the game is played in all corners of the globe and to solidify the International Federation of PGA Tours, those in America, Europe, Asia, Australia, South Africa, and Japan.

That is why S.S.P. Chowrasia was closing out a practice round at Doral with a smile on his face, even though it meant navigating his way along the hardest hole on the PGA Tour, the 467-yard 18th, which is guarded on the left all the way by water.

"It feels good to be here, but the course is very tough," said Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia, who graciously goes with S.S.P., "because it makes it easier for everyone."

A reporter agreed that it did and thanked Chowrasia, a 29-year-old from India. The son of a greenkeeper at Royal Calcutta GC, Chowrasia said his first tournament in the United States is a thrill for many reasons, but none carries more weight than the fact that the field includes the great Tiger Woods.

"I like that, but so much depends on my game," said Chowrasia, whose 24-hour journey took him from Delhi to Frankfurt, Germany, to Miami.

Like Kingston, Chowrasia knows he's the ultimate long shot in a field that features 49 of the world's top 50 players and is top-heavy with the likes of major winners named Woods and Singh, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Jim Furyk. The are no pretenses from either man about thwarting Woods's chance for a sixth straight PGA Tour win or even threatening the top of the leaderboard. But neither do they owe apologies, not when they can point to recent victories that validate their presence at Doral.

In December, Kingston scored a one-shot win in the South African Open, topping a field that included Els, Goosen, Angel Cabrera, Darren Clarke, Tim Clark, Greg Norman, Richard Sterne, and Oosthuizen. A few weeks ago, Chowrasia's victory in the Indian Masters came at the expense of names such as Els, Thomas Bjorn, and Mark O'Meara.

Evidence that Woods should be shaking in Nike footwear? Not exactly, but it shows that these men have earned their way into a tournament that sees the game through a global lens and thus has caught notice of Anton Haig of South Africa, Graeme Storm of England, Gregory Havret of France, Toru Taniguchi of Japan, and Paul Sheehan, a 31-year-old Aussie who has been invited in the past to play in Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill and Jack Nicklaus's Memorial, but has qualified for his first World Golf Championship event.

"I wouldn't say no to a tournament like this," said Sheehan, who plays on the Japanese PGA Tour but keeps hold of richer dreams, like making his way onto the PGA Tour in America. In that respect, he considers this a great opportunity to give him an indication of where he stands.

Kingston feels similarly.

"For me, it gives me a chance to play with the top players, and if I play well, it could open some doors," said Kingston.

As he spoke, Kingston watched his son, Christopher, work the range and come away with more autographs. The young man smiled and then volunteered even better news: After the tournament, his father was taking him up to Orlando to visit Disney World. Yes, the boy's smile grew brighter, but so, too, did the father's. James Kingston was already at Disney World.

Jim McCabe can be reached at jmccabe@globe.com