Further Assistance Required

With its reliance on a shaky corporate America the PGA Tour may need more than one antidote. John Hawkins has got a plan for them

Does the PGA Tour face empty grandstands?

Unless the PGA Tour takes definitive steps it faces more granstands like this.

By John Hawkins

February 5, 2009

Desperate times call for practical measures, only a few of which might require a stack of dynamite. If the PGA Tour entered America's double-bogey economy in excellent shape financially, perhaps a half-dozen of its tournaments may struggle to survive these tough times. Television ratings have never been lower, the dependence on a single player never greater, its relevance on the national sports radar barely existent beyond the four major championships -- none of which are governed by the tour itself.

Of course, Camp Ponte Vedra would like you to think it is recession-proof and above the mainstream fray when it comes to gauging its fiscal health and popularity. Privately, however, the tour must be concerned about its reliance on a wobbly corporate America, the competitive failures of its postseason format and the widening gap between successful tournaments and endangered ones.

"If you're asking how we're going to save opposite-field events and the Fall Series in this economic climate, it's going to be very difficult," admits tour veteran Joe Ogilvie. Those nine stops, plus three or four others, represent the tour's disposable commercial largesse and are rendered meaningless in the grand scheme.

Growing suspicions over the demise of the Bob Hope Classic, however, serve as an alarm to the difficulties facing all smaller events. Can the bottom quarter be salvaged? Perhaps, but it may require significant alterations to the tour's methodology.

Downsize, downsize, downsize -- After years of pondering the pros and cons of the all-exempt list, it's time to reduce the field number from 125 to 80. At the end of the regular season, those 80 guys head into the FedEx Cup playoffs. Everybody else has to qualify for full-time status in a revised format to be discussed later.

Ogilvie is among those who doesn't see this accomplishing much. At the very least, it would generate healthy turnover and give young guys a better chance to make the big leagues, which might produce more interesting storylines and some national attention for the lesser events. It would force big-name players having lousy years to participate in tournaments they might otherwise skip and create a greater sense of urgency at Greensboro, a weak-field gathering right before the playoffs.

More than anything, it would send a prudent message: Play hard. The number of seats on the gravy train just got a lot smaller.

The Five-Year Rule -- Viewed by some as the logical fix to what many perceive as pro golf's biggest problem: more than half of all tour stops have virtually no chance of getting Tiger Woods to show up at their tournament. Thus, the tour would require every player to tee it up at every event over a five-year period, a mandate that ostensibly affects a select few. Basically, you're usurping the rights of the one guy who has carried the operation on his back since he turned pro in 1996.

Is it fair, or even sensible, to penalize Woods for his massive success? "We already put too much pressure on Tiger and Phil [Mickelson]," says one veteran. "We need them to play more and we should be bending over backwards to accomplish that. Maybe we think about making them exempt from some pro-ams. Maybe we ask them to put on a half-hour clinic or do an hour-long Q&A with the sponsors."

These are good ideas, but how do they relate to saving tournaments such as the Hope? If you work with your superstars, maybe your superstars will work with you.

Invisible appearance fees -- When Mickelson signed an endorsement deal with hotel chain Crowne Plaza a couple of years ago, those paying attention knew it meant Philly Mick would be playing regularly at Colonial, a tournament with a long and deep history that has struggled to draw quality fields in recent years. Mickelson won at Colonial in dramatic fashion last spring, so the event got its money's worth -- even if it was a lot of dough.