I thought the Race to Dubai could have been a strong foil to the PGA Tour in 2009, especially since it threatened to take away some PGA Tour stars during key weeks of the PGA Tour regular season. Whoops! I blame the economy, of course.

yet another example – you can’t borrow and spend your way into prosperity. best to know what you’re good at and your limits, then plan your growth with a little bit of patience and good decision making – not hype and the promise of people you’re not really familiar with.

…though as an attention-grabbing headline, I’ll admit, it’s quite good. It strikes me a somewhat presumptuous carelessly bombastic (unless it’s an attempt at humor) to declare that “Invariably, the Race to Dubai will fail and come to an end.”

Your initial statement that “what the future will hold for this concept is still largely in the air.” is certainly more accurate. The thing of it is, no one knows, at this point , how the world economic crisis is going to pan out.

The majority of economists now feel that – at best – many of the worlds economies will continue to show minimal or stagnant growth for the coming five years. Many feel it’ll be closer to a decade. Still others are predicting a much worse outcome; an outcome that includes everything from periodic declines to major meltdowns in one or more of the world’s large economies.

I think the steps the Euro Tour is taking… like reducing the prize money and requiring participation in certain core events… makes total sense. And I think your hyperbole is showing with protectionism . After all doesn’t the PGA have rules that have a similar effect, and aren’t many fans calling for more such rules in regards to the Fedex Cup?

Now I may misinformed or getting this all wrong… my specialty, after all, is golf’s fun, flirty and fashionable side… but when I saw the headline I felt that even if it was humor, it warranted some discussion as the humor might be lost on some readers. Many folks here don’t realize that western Europeans …In general … would be more accepting of a sudden reduction in prize money than Americans (again…in general) would be. Their history has led them to a culture that does not value over-the-top wealth the way ours does….one that understands the concept of saving and self-sacrifice in times of hardship. This even applies to golfers… despite the comments of Fernandez-Castaño last week. There are of course exceptions…once again I’m generalizing… but I’d guess most Americans who’ve spent time actually living in Europe would agree.

Hopefully, for everyone everywhere the economy will get back on track in the not to distant future, but in the meantime I think events like the Race to Dubai will adapt and continue to exist. No RIP needed yet, ;o)

I should mention that the protectionist label was applied by Paddy Harrington himself when he heard about the “core” event measures being proposed. So, it’s definitely not hyperbole. The PGA Tour has a floor of 15 total events to be played to maintain membership (barring some kind of medical exemption). The Euro Tour currently has one of 12. Neither really dictate which events have to be played to get to that number, though.

With the global economy expected to be in a slump for anywhere between one and ten years – depending on how gloomy you feel that day – the Euro Tour is going to face problems not dissimilar from the LPGA Tour. It’s a tough environment, and they’re gaining some small measure of a victory here by still having the thing at all. But, you have to remember, too, that Dubai is trying to save face with this. If they can’t even get this thing off of the ground for one year, it makes them look even weaker than they already do.

O’Grady said in the past that there was a decent chance that the Race to Dubai may not have happened at all, given what happened to Leisurecorp.

I’m not trying to turn this into a comparison between American and European culture, but this should be a discussion about the desire to sponsor the product offered by each Tour. There are still companies willing to pony up PGA Tour dollars. And I’m sure there are some that would get on the Euro Tour train as well. But, those are individual events. There have been purse reductions for individual events on both tours this year.

The Leisurecorp sponsorship was more along the lines of what FedEx is doing with the FEC. They were going to help the Euro Tour build and develop new courses for their events, build a Dubai office for the Tour, and maybe even push for a 2018 Ryder Cup bid. To have all of that go away in a flicker is devastating for the Tour. And O’Grady has no backup plan. So, I see what he’s doing as protectionist because he is literally trying to protect whatever money he can salvage from this concept for his players – not the Americans that took up associate memberships with the Tour so they could cash in on this thing by playing four genuine Euro Tour events.