Ferguson: Blame Tiger and Phil

AP's Doug Ferguson says that Tim Finchem is not entirely to blame for the changes in Chicago and Washington D.C.

Finchem was a convenient target, the czar behind these changes aimed at making the golf season shorter and more interesting.

But it's not all his fault.

If anyone has complaints, look no further than Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. They were the catalysts who first started barking about the PGA Tour season being too long. All the commissioner did was respond to his two biggest stars.

Questioning Finchem

Ed Sherman on his Chicago Tribune golf blog:

...to hear people talk, rotating the tournament to other Midwest cities also was part of the price. No way. The Evans Scholars would make just as much money if the tournament stayed at Cog Hill.

We spent the entire week in the press room trying to figure out why PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem made this decision. There has to be something we're missing, perhaps some grand marketing scheme that is way over our feeble brains.

I don't think so. There can't be a reasonable explanation why the PGA Tour would leave the nation's third largest market to go to much smaller towns in the Midwest.

Even worse, do you realize in 2008 the Tour won't be in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.? When I asked Jim Furyk about that situation last week, he tried to be diplomatic, but you could see he was troubled by the Tour's lack of presence in the major markets.

Perhaps, the Tour wants to go small-time.  That has to be it, because its thinking certainly is small time.

They Understand The FedEx Cup In Chicago (Well, not really)

In a Q&A with Mike Spellman dubbed, "Let's wait, see about BMW Championship," Western Golf Association's Don Johnson demonstrates little idea of the FedEx Cup is going to work, and little enthusiasm for the scheduling change. Welcome to the club Don!

Q. When you first heard the idea of this playoff system, what were your thoughts?

A. I was confused.

Q. How long did it take to get unconfused?

A. Well, I’m not sure that I am. The point system and everything … I think anybody in the golf business who’s forthright about it is going to tell you we have to wait and see how this thing is going to work. The PGA Tour thinks it’s going to be wonderful, and I hope they’re right.

Q. It’s kind of a roll of the dice, isn’t it?

A. Yeah. And they may have to tweak it a little bit after the first year when they see how it actually works in fact as opposed to in theory. It’s certainly going to be a great thing for us being the final tournament before the Tour Championship.

Q. Why is the move from the Fourth of July to Labor Day a good thing?

A. The jury is still out on that, to be honest about it. I don’t know what happens to the interest in golf in Chicago after Labor Day. I’m hoping this event will be so spectacular that they’ll turn out, but we have to wait and see. It’s a work in progress.

Q. Your main worry about the September date?

A. You’ve got your Labor Day drop-off in golf, and then you’ve got Big Ten football, Notre Dame football; you’ve got baseball heading toward the playoffs … but we won’t have Taste of Chicago. There will be some competition we don’t have now. We’ll have to wait and see.

Q. Do the smaller crowds this year give you cause for concern next year?

A. Yes. The answer to that is yes. I worry that this week with the field we’ve had and the weather, that we have less people here than we had last year. (On Saturday) we had 7,000 less. That’s a lot. I don’t get it.

The Last Western

Ed Sherman lists all of the things disappearing with the demise of the Western. In all of the talk of FedEx Cup nonsense, I forgot that the "Open" aspect will disappear, meaning no more qualifying and no more spots for the Western Am winner.

It will be the last time it can be considered an open tournament. The stories about qualifiers always have been among the neat things about the Western.

It will be the last time Chicago can call itself the permanent home of the Western. The tournament has been here since 1962.

And last but not least, this week will be the last time anyone calls the tournament "the Western." That's been its name since 1899.

This week will mean farewell to the Western Open as we know it. After 107 years, one of the game's greatest traditions will be gone.

It's Avenel's Fault!

Leonard Shapiro confirms that there will be no PGA Tour golf in Washington D.C. until at least 2009.

Booz Allen Stories

Obviously I'm still catching up, but there are a few things worth noting in the SI and Golf World game stories covering the Booz Allen's demise. Though neither story questions what would actually require $25 million to redo Avenel (copper irrigation piping?), the handling of Booz's Ralph Shrader was laid out in detail by Gary Van Sickle.

While being wooed by the Tour, Shrader was shown what he calls "exciting" plans for an imminent $25 million renovation of Avenel. The tournament would have to be moved for a year during construction, and favors were called in so that in 2005 the Booz Allen could be played at nearby Congressional Country Club, which has hosted two U.S. Opens. Last year's Classic, played the week before the Open and won by García, was a huge success, but in the meantime not a teaspoon of dirt was turned at Avenel. Finchem blamed delays in getting the needed permits due to Avenel's environmentally sensitive wetland areas, an inexcusable planning lapse if true.

Shrader was equally frustrated in his quest for a preferred date. Shrader wanted the week before the U.S. Open every year, if possible. "One thing we learned in 2004 was that the week after the Open doesn't work here," he says. "Washington is one of those towns where, once the kids are out of school, everybody goes somewhere else and this place shuts down. The Tour said, 'Hey, get in line. A lot of people want to play that [pre-Open] week.'"

But six months before the '05 Classic, Shrader says he got a letter from Finchem. According to Shrader, "[Finchem] said, 'We haven't finalized the schedule, but I'm confident in assuring you that you can have your tournament before the Open three out of four years. Two of those years would be the week before the Open, the third year would probably be another date sometime before the Open, but the fourth year would have to be the week after. We are well aware of your concerns, and we are going forward with our plans for the course.'"

Shrader says he had several conversations with the Tour in succeeding weeks and met with Tour execs during the Presidents Cup in September. Another session was scheduled for two weeks later but was canceled by the Tour. Shrader says he received a subsequent letter from the Tour saying, "Give us another 30 days." Says Shrader, "The next conversation I had was on a Friday morning in January when [Finchem] called two hours before the FedEx Cup and the 2007 schedule was announced. He said, 'We've decided to move your tournament to the fall.' I was surprised, obviously. It was totally different than anything I'd been presented."

And Jim Moriarty writes in Golf World:

In a telephone interview, commissioner Tim Finchem said the tour never contemplated making any changes to Avenel until 2006, yet Shrader secured Congressional as the venue for the highly successful 2005 event held the week before the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2. While both sides acknowledge that permit problems have delayed work on Avenel, Funk, for one, wondered, "When we're spending however much money we're spending down at TPC [at] Sawgrass, doing a huge renovation there, do we have the funds to do a huge renovation here as well?"

Enter the FedEx Cup. Lo and behold, when FedEx agreed to ante up $40 million to be the title sponsor of the tour's new year-ending points race, the tournament FedEx used to sponsor in Memphis just happened to get the date the week before the U.S. Open coveted by Booz Allen. With the Players Championship moving to May, "It's just one of those situations where we had too much water to put in the glass," said Finchem. Good for Memphis, not so good for D.C.

The Western No Longer

I actually got to read this Ed Sherman column on the death of the Western as it appeared in the Chicago Tribune. And I wonder how many people at the Tour realize what the "Western Open" name has meant to pro golf? Doesn't matter now.

Officials, using well-rehearsed lines, tried to explain why Chicago golf fans shouldn't feel jilted.

"We really don't look at it as abandoning Chicago," the PGA Tour's Tom Wade said. "We look at it as really upgrading and bringing a top-level, world-class event to Chicago."

How much of an upgrade do we need?

Sure, the September field will be deeper, but Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh are Western Open regulars and Phil Mickelson is an occasional visitor.

Are the crowds, which average in the high 40,000 range on the weekend, going to be substantially bigger because Retief Goosen is in the field? I'd rather see Woods every year and take a pass on Goosen.

The fact is, a strong local sponsor never would have allowed the tournament to be moved.

It remains a mystery why, after Motorola bowed out in 1999, a Chicago-area company never stepped up to support the event.

Now BMW, for a substantial $12 million to $14 million per year investment in sponsor costs, has renamed the tournament. It's hard to see the Western Open name go, but at least Evans Scholars will see a major boost in funding. That's one upgrade we can accept.

It wasn't BMW's decision to rotate tournament locations. That ruling came from the PGA Tour.

Washington Politics

Thanks to Jim A. for the heads up on this Leonard Shapiro story on the Washington event, and the contradicting views of those involved in the event's demise move to the fall.

"Booz Allen made it clear from Day One about certain date limitations after the U.S. Open," Finchem said. "That more or less dovetailed with our attitude that continuing to move the tournament back and forth [before and after the Open] was not consistent with being able to stage the kind of event and to have continuity of sponsorship. The main thing, the main point of Booz Allen, is they did not want to play anything after the Open. That was troublesome for us."

Booz Allen chairman Ralph Shrader disputed Finchem's version of events. He said the last formal communication he received from the tour on dates for the tournament came in February 2005. He said the tour at that point offered a four-year sponsorship cycle that would have included three dates before the Open and a fourth after the Open, with the possibility of staging all four before the Open.

"That was the last formal communication we had with the tour," Shrader said. "At that point they also said they would finalize the plans to renovate the course at Avenel and they'd get back to us. They got back to me two hours before they said [in a news conference in January] they had moved the event to the fall.

"We did not have the opportunity to say no. I won't allow it to be perceived that Booz Allen cost the Washington area the event. We worked too hard and spent too much money [about $30 million over three years] to make it a first-class event. I'm not going to accept any blame for what happened. It's all in the tour's court."

Finchem On Washington

Boy, after reading the recent stuff from Carolyn Bivens, Tim Finchem's press conferences are so boring!

Still, it was a combative teleconference with the Washington scribblers on demise of the Booze Allen and the reconstruction of TPC Avenel:

With respect to how we got to the scheduling decision, as I indicated at the end of our television negotiations, when we released our schedule earlier in the year, we felt like it was important to give as many weeks to possible consistent dates. We could have gone to a continuation of a situation where some years we play earlier in the summer in Washington, like we played last year, and other years we could play later in the summer. The feeling was that we would continue to have an inconsistent execution of our product, probably the fallout of that being a lack of continuity with the title sponsor, which has certainly been the case there since Kemper left. We just didn't want to go down that road. We wanted to try something we felt like had a better chance of continual year in, year out success.

I've always said, that if you can't have consistent product execution, it's just not worth it. 

Q. Big picture question. How did the tournament in DC, one of the biggest markets in the nation, nation's capital, wind up on the outside looking in as far as the good dates go, and some tournaments in smaller markets, like the 84 Lumber in Greensboro, not nearly as well supported by the public as this one, how did they end up with the good dates and this tournament was on the out?

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: First of all, it's kind of hard to answer that question in the way you phrase it because you're assuming certain things about a "good date." We have dates on our schedule from the first week in January right through now the fall series to November. What's a good date for one market is not a good date for another market. What's a good date for a particular sponsor is not a good date for another sponsor in the same market. There are a lot of variables in terms of what goes into a date.

I think that the reaction to the date change in Washington has really been focused on one thing, and that is being in the FedEx Cup season, early summer, is preferable to anything else. I certainly wouldn't argue the point that being in the FedEx Cup season is an advantage. But I think the reaction perhaps has been a little bit overdone in terms of the negativity of the fall, as I said earlier.

The bottom line is that we were not comfortable, and frankly neither was Booz Allen, in continuing a date structure that has historically led to an event that would not be the kind of event on a number of levels that we'd like to see over the long term in the nation's capital. We wanted an opportunity to do something better. We thought consistent dates was part of that, but there are other factors.

This is a little weird....

TODD BUDNICK: Thank you very much for your time today, Commissioner.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Thank you, Todd.

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you need additional information, we're available to you. I know a couple of you have called in the last couple of weeks. I've deferred those conversations until I had an opportunity to make comments generally today. In the aftermath of this week's tournament, I'd be happy to make myself available or other people on our team. We'll have more to say about Avenel here very shortly after the public hearing.

In the meantime, I would encourage you to cover this week's tournament. We have a lot of great players there, good golf course, we're looking forward to a good competition. Thank you.

I would encourage you to cover this week's tournament? What else would they cover? 

"We've been promised some good dates thanks to our friends at FedEx"

Phil Stukenborg in the Memphis Commercial-Appeal (beat the Light and Shopper) writes about the St. Jude event and its excitement over a new June date in the 07 FedEx Cup schedule. Tournament director Phil Cannon is also excited for these reasons:

--The tournament, which will be known in 2007 as the Stanford St. Jude Championship, will be played June 7-10, or in the enviable spot one week before the U.S. Open.

--The FedEx Cup points competition, similar to the Nextel Cup on the NASCAR Circuit, is expected to increase player participation.

--And several more weeks to grow the rough should have the course in ideal condition.

That rough harvesting is tricky business!

Here's the line that will irk some tournament directors:

''There are about three primo dates on the PGA Tour in the summertime and we are going to have one of them next year,'' Cannon said. ''It hasn't been finalized yet, but the Tour has said we'll like our 2008 through 2012 dates just as much. We've been promised some good dates thanks to our friends at FedEx.''

And Cannon is excited about the FedEx Cup...

''The whole FedEx Cup points competition is going to change the structure of our sport tremendously,'' Cannon said. ''It's going to reward players for their performances and participation on a year-long basis, much like you see in NASCAR with the Nextel Cup. Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt are in every race all year long. Thirty-eight races.

''I don't think you'll see pro golfers in 95 percent of their events, but I think you'll see them increase their starts and vary their schedules. From talking to players and agents, they all say this is going to revolutionize scheduling.''

"Isn't there a number between one and 15?"

Fred Couples, talking to Bob Verdi in this week's Golf World:

"I don't understand the new TV deal. We signed for 15 years with The Golf Channel? Isn't there a number between one and 15? Did the NBA sign for 15 years with TNT? How'd we lose ESPN? I also don't get that. What if ESPN decides in three years they want golf again? What does the PGA Tour tell them? Sorry, we're with The Golf Channel until 2021?"

Check out the full column for his thoughts on possibly serving as Ryder Cup captain, and other first rate curmudgeonry. 

More On 84

Thanks to Big K for the heads up on this Teresa Lindeman story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that sheds  a little more light on the 84 Lumber Classic's surprising demise.

But pretty soon, it became clear the higher costs of such things as moving from ESPN to CBS would bump the overall price tag up to the point where 84 Lumber expected to pay $100 million over the six-year contract.

That's money that could be used to build a lot of new stores plus help pay for acquisition of companies that can fill in services not offered by 84 Lumber now.

Ms. Hardy Magerko couldn't justify putting so much money and staff time into a golf tournament, especially since her customers are not the broad consumer audience that would be attracted to a CBS broadcast.

She broke the news to her father. "I didn't ask him. I basically told him," she said, knowing that he would hate losing the event. And he did, though she said he agreed with her assessment of the financial bottom line.

Ms. Hardy Magerko has mixed emotions about how things worked out with the PGA. She has offered to host the fall tournament another year if the organization can't find a replacement in time.

She believes the golf organization might have helped 84 Lumber more in making its numbers work. She said the PGA was unwilling to sign a deal shorter than six years or to allow the company to bring in a presenting sponsor to help share the expense, though she has heard it has been more accommodating for the group that stepped up to take the spot.

For now, 84 Lumber is prepared to put on its final PGA tournament in the fall and then move on. Ms. Hardy Magerko won't miss the constant meetings required to plan the annual golf event. That's time she can spend on the road meeting with her new store managers.