Shrinking The "Product" Schedule

Doug Ferguson has plenty of interesting quotes about a developing battle between the richest and the merely wealthy PGA Tour players. The fight? Over shortening the PGA Tour season. Tiger (wisely) says end the schedule around Labor Day, but the second half of the money list says no way. Jeff Sluman's quote is most revealing:

"If you took two months off the schedule, overall the fields would be better," Jeff Sluman said. "But what is the commissioner's job? His first priority is how many tournaments we can play and how high can we get the purses. It's all about playing opportunities."

In other words, Tim Finchem's salary is most likely laced with "playing opportunity" incentives to get the most money and the most events on the schedule. Finchem of course, didn't miss an opportunity to unload some MBAspeak.

"I wouldn't want to mislead anybody into thinking that we are on a mission to significantly alter the schedule," he said. "But we are aggressively looking and challenging ourselves in how we are presenting the product."