Shapiro Reviews Prospects For Washington Golf

The Washington Post's Leonard Shapiro on the PGA Tour pulling out of Washington:

I think the commissioner heard loud and clear that Washington was not about to accept a second-class golf event played at what has become a second-class venue at TPC Avenel. He heard it from his own players, from the press, from talk radio, from letters to the editor, from e-mails on the internet and other correspondence to his office in Ponte Vedra. And finally, I believe he got the point.

Now it seems as if the tour may also finally be getting serious about fixing up Avenel, ostensibly the reason there will be no tournament here in 2007, and probably 2008 as well. If the tour is going to spend what they say is $18 to $20 million and what others say likely will balloon to the $25 million range, they want to do it right.

They really can't re-route the golf course, but they can certainly move enough earth to make it a more challenging venue, and perhaps also upgrade the infrastructure Avenel never has had to support the thousands of golf fans who have flocked to the course year after year.

So does anyone know if these $20 and $25 million figures represent just what is being spent on the course, or also include a clubhouse redo?

Comments

[Steve]

"The tour has a long history of title sponsors signing up and then pulling out, usually for economic reasons, and perhaps that will happen to an event in another city over the next two years, thus leaving an opening on the spring schedule for Washington."

Who is Leonard kidding? After the articles he and Boswell wrote looks like he's trying to earn his brown nose the hard way. That's why Finchem didn't give the event until Sept. to find a new title sponsor. Now Leonard's proposal is this;

"But Finchem can go a long way toward soothing plenty of ruffled feathers in this area by announcing early next year that after careful consideration, the tour has decided to return to RTJ in the fall of 2009 for the next Presidents Cup competition. Better yet, they could announce RTJ as the future permanent U.S. home of the event."

Tim has already said kiss my ass Leonard. In 2012, more like 2013 after Tim's retired.

[Van]

I thought a majority of Tour players were against anymore money going into stadium courses. What happened?

[TC the Terrible]

The long and short of this is that DC got screwed over by the PGA. No major sponsor is going to put up dollars for an event that has no meaning. DC won't get an event any time in the next decade.

Butt-kissers like Shapiro are only making it worse by sucking up to the PGA.

[Ryan]

"The tour has a long history of title sponsors signing up and then pulling out, usually for economic reasons"

or for being lied to (Booze Allen), or just wham, bam, thank you Cialis but we've gotten excited about BMW taking over, thanks for the 10 year supply.

TC, can you break the code down once more for Len?

[TC the Terrible]

The web site is here, if you want go read the full article.

http://tctheterrible.com/blog/2006/07/06/pga-pretentous-god-damn-assholes/

Just copy and past it into your browser. For those that are only interested in "the code" here's that.

* “Commissioner Tim Finchem” = whorish crack head in need of a pimp
* “remains committed” = only if you find a major sponsor with no help from the tour
* “the Tour’s first priority is to upgrade Avenel” = closing your tournament down for a year will give us time to come up with a politically correct reason for completely killing it
* “. . . mixed reviews from professional players . . .cited as a reason for the lackluster fields” = the purse isn’t big enough to get Tiger and Phil to notice
* “Unhappy with the less prestigious spot on the schedule, Booz Allen . . . declined to renew its sponsorship. . .” = Screw you, PGA.
* “hopeful of having an event back in Washington, possibly as soon as 2008” = polite way of telling District golf fans to perform an act that the human anatomy is incapable of doing
* “Finchem was not available to comment.” = chicken shit

[Jonathan Cummings]

TC -if what you say is true then why in the world has Finchem just committed $25M to upgrade their DC TPC? As Avenel is private it would be a stretch to argue Tim is just giving something back to the DC area.

I just can't see putting this kind of money into the place without intending to use it.

JC