Should They Put the "World" Back in "World Golf Championships"?
The short answer is: arguably, but don't expect it to happen. There is no incentive for the PGA Tour to move any of the three existing WGC tournaments outside the U.S.
But a lot of folks, including some influential golfers, would love to see the WGC events revert to their original design: tournaments that rotate to great courses around the world, bringing the best golfers to various parts of the globe.
From a Doug Ferguson article on the subject:
The longer the "World" Golf Championships are anchored in America, the more they look like any other tournament. As more PGA Tour events keep raising their standards, the more they rival WGC events that were meant to be special.
"I don't see them moving forward," Adam Scott said, an opinion shared by many of his peers. "It's not different for the money. They're not playing them on great golf courses. It's just another event. They've lost some of the luster they once had."
Given a full menu of great tournaments, British Open champion Padraig Harrington is skipping the next one at Doral.
"I don't think I would have 10 years ago," he said.
Really, what PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has done with the WGC tournaments is a clever bit of marketing jujitsu.
Recall that back in the early 1990s, Greg Norman came up with the idea for a global "tour," a series of tournaments played all over the world and featuring the best golfers from each major world tour. Fred Couples, the best American player of the time, got on board.
The PGA Tour went nuts in opposition. Norman's idea was viewed as a potential rival tour, not as something complementary and certainly not as something good for the PGA Tour. Tim Finchem became commissioner in 1994. The Tour bashed Norman as a traitor, and lobbied Couples, and eventually Norman reluctantly dropped the idea.
Then what happened? Then Finchem stole the idea and set about making it happen. In 1999, the World Golf Championships were born, but essentially under the complete control of the PGA Tour.
Well-played, commish. (Norman detests Finchem to this day).
Not only did Finchem appropriate Norman's idea and create a series of "world" events, he then set out to turn them into PGA Tour stops.
And he's succeeded in that, too. The WGC tournaments are all U.S.-based now, essentially just another week on the PGA Tour (although the global nature of the fields remains intact). Except that they are treated by most golfers, fans and media as quasi-majors - very important tournaments that garner tons of attention ... for the PGA Tour.
Again, well-played commish.
This process hasn't been without issues, however. The addition of three WGC events to the PGA Tour schedule has furthered the creation of the "Tiger Tour" - the frontline tournaments that Woods plays. It has, in other words, deepened the divide between the haves and have-nots among PGA Tour tournaments.
And now some golfers are starting to notice what the PGA Tour has done, and voicing their support for going back to the original idea of a global series.
Will the PGA Tour allow that to happen? There are good reasons for basing all the tournaments in America: money, money and money. The TV money is here, Woods and Mickelson are here. And in the early days of the WGC, the top American golfers weren't always willing to travel overseas to play a WGC event, particularly the Match Play.
But golf is growing the world over. And just because a golf tournament isn't televised live (at a decent hour) in the U.S. doesn't mean it isn't happening, or that it's not having a huge impact in another part of the world.
With certain provisos, it wouldn't be that difficult to return WGC tournaments to sites outside the U.S., and without harming the series.
- The Bridgestone is locked in at Firestone, and should remain so. Firestone is a storied locale, with deep ties to and a great history of important golf tournaments. So keep the WGC Bridgestone at Firestone every year.
- Doral is also a storied locale with deep PGA Tour ties, but hasn't yet become deeply entwined with the WGC. So it's OK to move the CA Championship from Doral.
- Many of the top American players won't travel very far to play the Match Play Championship, so that tournament needs to be kept close by.
- Alternate the CA Championships between the U.S. (not necessarily Doral, although a regular PGA Tour event at Doral would be needed) and Europe, Asia and Australia.
- The Match Play alternates between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Plus, this plan also returns two of the WGC tournaments to a rotation among great golf courses. And that's especially good in the case of the Match Play. Think of all the old courses that are now too short to host stroke-play majors (or even regular PGA Tour events). Length doesn't matter in match play. Nobody is counting relative to par. Want to put the match play at that great old 6,500-yard course? Do it. It brings some of the historic courses of the U.S. and Canada back into play.
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couple of thoughts to toss in...
About Mexico - remember a few years back when the then "Seniors Tour" played in Mexico the first time - a number of them were robbed at gunpoint in a restaurant. I'm guessing a lot of the high dollar golfers might balk at playing in Mexico as it would require some seriously heavy security, which probably wouldn't look very good in the media.
All of those places are located pretty much in the same hemisphere - leaving out Australia, Europe, and now some pretty good courses in Asia. The locations become semantic with the time zone difference.
It always comes back to the money. The great majority of the top 100 players in the world play on the PGA Tour. The viewership is in the US along with most of the bucks.
How about exploring Dubai when they open Tiger's new course there ? Lots of money - similar time zone to the UK for viewers used to the Britsh Open...
by courtgolf on Feb 20, 2008 1:25 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

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