Troubled Waters

Although the Valero Texas Open moves from the fall to May to replace the AT&T Classic, the regular-season schedule that runs through the Tour Championship in September has the same number of tournaments as 2008, along with a modest increase in prize money. Two events have changed title sponsors. Transitions replaces PODS at Tampa and HP replaces EDS at the Byron Nelson.

The question left hanging is what shape the Fall Series will take in 2009. There were seven tournaments, six held after the Tour Championship, in 2008. The Valero had a date switch and the Ginn sur Mer Classic, has folded, a victim of the real estate market collapse. That leaves the Fall Series down at least two events. With more players chasing European Tour money in Asia and the Middle East at that time of the year, a trimming of the late-season events will impact the second-tier players the most severely.

The greatest financial impact on tournaments likely will come in the form of reduced corporate entertaining and pro-am participation. While the marketing will remain, it will be more low-key and, as McLean suggests, with a greater focus on giving back. It also may be reduced: Companies may choose to sponsor one pro-am foursome for $25,000 instead of two, or opt for the $15,000 hospitality tent instead of the $50,000 air-conditioned one.

"Will golf suffer some cuts? Yeah," predicts Mark Steinberg, the global managing director of IMG, the sport's largest and most diverse management company. "It is going to be tough through 2009, and I expect a tough 2010." Still, Steinberg notes that in bad times it is, in some ways, more important for companies to creatively figure out a way to continue marketing and keep their name in front of the consumer. "Our motto is: 'Out-work everyone.' " he says.

In many ways, that's what Finchem has done. Over the years he has built up an emergency war chest for the tour, suggesting to players that not every dollar that comes in should be put directly into purses, but that a portion should be set aside for a rainy day. After a furious increase in prize money through the late 1990s and early 2000s, Finchem steered the tour in a more moderate direction.

After the phenomenal increases in the first TV deal negotiated in the Tiger Woods era -- a 40-percent leap from 1998 to '99 and more than doubling by 2002 -- more modest increases came into play. The total purse jumped 13 percent in 2003, the first year of the next contract, and grew 29 percent over the length of the four-year deal.

When the current contract went into effect in 2007, the purse increase from the previous year was 5.2 percent with a 3.2 percent increase in 2008. Next year's increase also will be in low single digits.

"We have built up reserves because we anticipate difficult times," Votaw explains. "One reason [is] that when we go to negotiate [the next] TV deals, the climate might change. Tim was an economist in the Carter Administration. He knows all about recessions."

The experts also say difficult economic times can present opportunities for those wise enough to recognize the landscape and adapt. "This is a good time for players to double down on their deals," says David Carter, a business professor at the University of Southern California and founder of Sports Business Group, a marketing consulting company. "If they are doing two corporate days a year [in exchange for their endorsement dollars] and the company asks them to do four for the same money, they should offer to do a fifth. When things turn around, the companies will remember the athletes who stepped up and helped."

The tour seems to have latched onto that theme, positioning itself in 2009 as not merely a pro sport just passing through town for the week but as a partner of responsible corporate citizens sensitive to the needs of the community. Last week, Finchem issued a video plea to his members to play in more tournaments next year, especially helping the lesser events, and to work harder to cultivate sponsors.

"Though the sports business is just that -- a business -- and it rises and falls with the economy, it generates revenue, jobs and economic benefits to the community," McLean says. That will be a common message at tour stops in 2009, and it is a message that is free of hyperbole. The slogan may morph next year from "These guys are good" to "These guys do good." The sincerity of that message could well be as important as the quality of the competition in determining the success of the new season.