Last year he was the talk of Mike and the Mad Dog for skipping the Barclays, so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out, and whether Tiger drops in for the opening event of this year's FedEx Cup campaign, or whether he'll start off as he did last year, in Boston, at the Deutsche Bank Championship, and run the tables from there.
If this is all about Tiger (and poor attendance was reason No. 2 the tour is playing hardball with Westchester CC), there are no guarantees. Ty Votaw, Executive Vice President for the PGA Tour, told me Monday, "Sitting here today, I have no idea where [Tiger] will or won't play, no matter where the golf course is. We never do."
Mark Steinberg, Tiger's manager and the head of IMG's golf division, was looped in to the plans for moving from Westchester by Barclays executives. He characterized it more "as an FYI" than a temperature taking.
Back to Phil, Lopez needs to have a summit with Lefty and the Classic Club, then somehow get the final round back on the Palmer Course at PGA West or back to Ogilvie's point, back to a suitable venue. One of Phil's problems with Hope management was that he didn't want to play in the celebrity part of the draw. He was there to play golf, not be part of a circus. Laid out that way, it sounds fair enough. Give him that, but also give him a say.
The guy has won 32 tournaments, three majors and gets the annual award for "Most Autographs Signed by a Superstar;" he deserves a piece of his own tournament. In this deal, the Hope could provide a sounding board that doesn't just listen, nod and then go a different direction--which is Phil's constant gripe about the tour. At one point, there was a chance that BearingPoint would sponsor the L.A. Open, making Phil the unofficial ambassador or, like Tiger with the AT&T, a potential host of the event, with tie-ins to Phil's charities.
That deal has gone sour, opening the door to more than just Phil and George appearing in Crowne Plaza commercials. If the tour can change courses to get Tiger, they could do the same for Phil. It would save The Hope.
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