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Bivens, bad business from Buick, FedEx failures and wishing the Skins game would just go away
Time for a few Monday morning thoughts on the PGA Tour, Carolyn Bivens, the FedEx Cup format and bad business from Buick, among other things.
-In the time in took to write this, the Carolyn Bivens and the LPGA either lost a sponsor, cheesed off at least one person off or are doing damage control after another PR nightmare. Perhaps all of the above.
-There aren’t that many more touching stories than Robert Allenby trying to win the Australian Masters for his dying mother. Perhaps the only thing more heartbreaking is how close he came to doing it.
-Does anyone really care about the Skins Game anymore? Novel at first, but something that has clearly worn out its welcome.
-Just wondering, but if Buick sales were down 58 percent, give or take, over the nine years Tiger Woods and GM had their endorsement deal, how did the deal last nine years? What took GM so long to pull the plug, Tiger or not?
-Last we checked, John Daly was about a missed putt away from dropping out of the top 700 in world ranking. Not even Martha Stewart fell this hard, this fast. Long John is just travelling the globe, playing where people will have him. And it’s sad to see.
-Upon further review, the new FedEx Cup format, while marginally improved, still stinks. Not only can the top couple of players skip out of the Barclays and still win, but the eventual champion doesn’t even have to win the Tour Championship outright. Is this the only sport where the winner of the final event is not necessarily the season champion? NASCAR, you say? Is that really a sport as much as one big, long left turn? Discuss.
Not sure why everything has to be so confusing, with so many asterisks. If the PGA Tour is adamant about having 30 players in the finale, make it a free-for-all. You are good enough to make the top 30 and you win the Tour Championship, you are FedEx king. At the final event, you cut after each round. Knock it down to 20, then 15 then 10 for the final round. And those ten get their scores wiped out, much like the LPGA’s ADT Championship, and it becomes a ten-player, 18-hole shootout.
In other words, use the point system to figure out who gets in the playoffs. Once there, points don’t matter. Only the strong survive to see the next week. Any other way defeats the purpose of having a playoff season.
-Canadians Wes Heffernan and Graham DeLaet dropped out of the top ten to 13th at the World Cup but they get a tip of their hat for not buckling under the pressure in China. Sure, no Tiger, no Phil, no Vijay, no Sergio but who’s counting? It’s still the World Cup, and they more than held their own against some of the world’s best players. That should be a career boost for both of them.
FedEx Cup changes should do…well, for another year
If he was so inclined, Tim Finchem could get a little risqué and devise a slogan that truly reflects the passion, the excitement, the utter confusion, of the PGA Tour playoffs.
We’re thinking something along the lines of “The FexCup Delivers. Well, after three freakin’ tries.”
Delivers? FedEx? See the tie-in?
Yep, another overhaul is done, meaning you get a sneak peak at the FedEx Cup, v. 3, prior to ringing in the New Year. And what’s different? Well, for one, Tiger the champion won’t be able to pen his acceptance speech a few weeks before he drops the final putt and apparently will have to play well – never mind just showing up and signing his scorecard four times – to be crowned FedEx king.
There is still the complex point system that will have most math professors calling for a straitjacket, but it’s an improvement. Granted, the top couple of players in 2009 could conceivably skip the playoff-opening Barclays and still be sipping bubbly once its all over, but I guess the world’s best over the course of the season – or, in other words, Tiger and the next best guy – should get some type of perk, don’t you think? We’re thinking a date with Anna Rawson, but if they’d rather play hooky for a week, they’ve earned it, I guess.
Finchem stresses that the beauty of the new format is that the guy in 30th spot at the Tour Championship can still win the FedEx Cup. Of course, the other 29 will have to miss their wake-up call, but no sense splitting hairs.
Fact is, there is really no way to come up with the perfect formula for a golf playoff season. No matter how much a proposal is fine-tuned, there will always be buffoons like me playing Monday morning quarterback.
The system is not perfect and we know, eventually, the PGA Tour will get it right. We think. Given the pace at which they operate, we’re guessing somewhere around 2025.
But this is an improvement and should do the trick.
Well, until this time next year.
Tiger Woods, GM breakup another sign auto giant about to hit the wall
Try not to shed a tear for Tiger Woods.
Really, if you didn’t’ see the writing on the wall, if you didn’t get an inkling that GM was considering yanking the plug on their high-priced schmoozing with the world’s number one, you either haven’t been paying attention to GM’s nosedive in the stock market or have spent far too much time out in the driveway putting water and cloth to your Honda.
Reports suggest Tiger will now be about $10 million lighter a year. Or, in layman’s terms, it’s kind of like you or I getting our dollar swallowed by the pop machine.
You see, GM is on life support, which is why you see their honchos heading to Washington with the other two of the Big Three, hat in hand, begging for about $25 billion – no, not million, BILLION – to stay in business. Of course, a GM spokesman says cutting loose from Tiger at the same time is “purely coincidental.” Pfft.
Yeah, and it is coincidental that there was a couple gallons of Jimmy Beam missing from the Exxon Valdez cupboards before the oil tanker lost a game of chicken with the Bligh Reef.
And the word coming out of Tiger’s camp is the split was “mutual.” Yeah, right. I was born at night, but not last night.
GM is scheduled to pick up the tab for a pair of events in 2009 – the Buick Open and Buick Invitational – but you’re probably more likely to see a Pontiac Sunfire with 80,000 clicks still on the road than you are to see golf those two weeks.
OK, so that is a stretch. My buddy actually had 90,000 on his Sunfire.
Try to connect the dots. Buick is not giving out courtesy cars to players and officials any longer. GM cuts their deal with Tiger Woods. GM is looking for their piece of a $25 million pie or they could be done by the New Year.
Out of business.
And if that happens, the PGA Tour will be lined up like every other creditor, hoping they draw the short straw to get some of their money back.
Speaking of coincidences, Buick sales are reportedly down by more than 50 per cent in the nine years Tiger’s been plugging their wheels.
Shocking, huh? Not really.
Free Buick Enclave in the driveway or not, last we heard, Tiger drives a Porsche.
Annika Sorenstam drug test further proof LPGA morals down toilet
On her way out the door to retirement, they made Annika Sorenstam pee.
Somehow, one should not be surprised. Not only did Sorenstam close out her LPGA career – well, for the next six or seven months or until she gets fed up with the hubby at home, anyway – by missing the cut at the ADT Championship, but Carolyn Bivens and the Toilet Patrol made Annika do the drug test thing when she was done.
Seriously. No word yet if Bivens passed a note under the loo door to Annika. You know, “if you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie, wipe the seatie.”
If PR disasters were brains, Bivens would be head of MENSA.
Yeah, I know, I know…Sorenstam’s number was up, it is random testing, blah, blah, blah. But for once, could the LPGA not have done the right thing, the classy thing, and looked the other way? And no, I don’t mean as their Queen was going about her business. I mean, no, we aren’t going to put her through that. Not on this day.
But of course, they couldn’t. So in the moments when the LPGA should have been toasting the best player to ever come down their pike, they instead order the indignity of having her crouch down in a bathroom stall to see if she is a cheater.
What were they going to do if the test came up positive? Stop her pension plan? Order her to bow at the feet of Lorena? Bomb Sweden? (I need a disclaimer on the last point – don’t want to give Bivens any ideas).
Um, it may seem a little tardy, I know, but why run a drug test AFTER her career is over? And the least memorable of her career at that? Wouldn’t logic tell you maybe the LPGA should have pushed for drug testing a few years ago, when Annika won whenever she wanted and had arms about the size of a small spruce?
After a year of PR snafus, boneheaded decisions and the loss of three tournaments from their 2009 schedule, the LPGA could have, for once, done the right thing. And perhaps saved a little face along the way. Damage control.
Instead, they spit in the face of a lady on the day she waves goodbye.
Pathetic and a complete lack of class.
Then again, this is the LPGA we are talking about.
Should we really expect anything different?
Q-School longshots, appendicitis, Bush, Boo and the honesty of Hayes
A few Monday morning thoughts on the PGA Tour and the golf world in general from a guy who is taking the under when it comes to wagering a guess on Annika’s return:
-Not sure what is more surprising: Leggatt, DeLaet, McLean, Scott, Gillespie, Heffernan and Baryla not getting out of second stage of PGA Tour Qualifying, or Brennan Webb and Kent Eger making it through. Discuss. Oh, and if you had Webb and Eger in your office pool, go buy a lottery ticket. Right about now.
-Riddle me this: Paula Creamer gets admitted to hospital Saturday night with what appeared to be, and I quote, “signs of appendicitis.” Yet she gets the OK to play the final round of the ADT Sunday, presumably so she can try to lock up the LPGA money crown which, by the way, she didn’t. Seems to me Creamer needs to a) find a new doctor and b) realize some things are more important than golf.
-So George Bush invited the U.S. Ryder Cup team to the White House last week. Thankfully, George Dub didn’t congratulate the American boys for a “resounding victory over those Iraqi guys.” No word yet what Boo Weekley used as a spit can for his Skoal, or if he asked a White House staffer “Where’s the babe that was up for V.P.?”
-Speaking of Bush, the Prez should invite the European team. With Faldo at his side, perhaps he will finally find someone with a lower approval rating in his own country.
-What’s with all the noise about 14-year-old Jason Hak being the youngest ever to make a cut at a European Tour event? Whoopee. Canada has a 17-year-old who is four rounds away from earning a full card on the PGA Tour. Golf world, meet Richard Lee.
-Happy retirement, Annika. Farewell tour not what you had planned, huh? Bad taste in the mouth? We thought so. It’ll be a brief reprieve. We’re thinking June at the latest. See you then.
-My golf story of 2008, sans Tiger: J.P. Hayes, looking to retain his PGA Tour card at Q-School, accidently plays a non-conforming ball for one hole at second stage. One hole. Two-stroke penalty, but no problem. Hayes still finishes in the top 20 to move on to final stage.
Fast forward to later that night as Hayes goes through his bag in his hotel room. Hayes realizes that the ball is a Titleist prototype not even approved for tour play. Dilemma time: keep his mouth shut or pick up the phone?
Hayes calls an official in Houston and says, verbatim, “I think I have a problem.” Not sure if he was trying to be funny – Houston, have a problem? – but we’re guessing not.
Turns out he did have a problem. DQ’d from Q-School and looking for a place to play in 2009.
Golf has always been called the game of gentlemen, but far too many would have taken the easy way out. Easiest route for them, their careers, their selfishness. Hayes did not, even with so much on the line, which makes his my story of the year. For all the right reasons.
LPGA first to take a hit but it is just calm before storm
Not many eyebrows were raised when Carolyn Bivens broke the news that the LPGA schedule would be a few tournaments and $5 million lighter next season.
Call it golf’s calm before the storm.
Get used to it. Odds are it’s going to get a whole lot worse in the next few years.
Forget the bravado put on by Big Brother Tim Finchem and the boys over at the PGA Tour, boasting of an increase in prize money when they released their 2008 schedule last week. If Finchem wants to pound his chest and proclaim, and I quote, “ the demise of the PGA Tour has been overstated considerably”, all the power to him. Perhaps he hasn’t checked out the stock market lately. Or, to be more specific, the lifelines needed to keep GM and Chrysler afloat, a rather ominous scenario seeing how Buick sponsors two PGA Tour events, and Chrysler one.
Finchem is hearing the same footsteps as Bivens. The difference, of course, is the PGA Tour has a nest egg that dwarfs the LPGA. A visit to the bank can solve problems as they arise. Times are not nearly as pressing for the boys at this moment.
The PGA Tour is not yet living hand-to-mouth. They will donate more than $120 million to charity this year thanks to the success of the season past.
But be warned. The strength of the economy, an oxymoron if there ever was such a thing, is going to hit golf like a hammer in a couple of years should the current trends continue.
It is something Bivens recognizes, at least publically. Suggesting the LPGA is on borrowed time could be considered hyperbole, but Bivens – who has made more than her fair share of cryptic business decisions during her reign – knows the LPGA is going to take a serious hit and she is braced for it.
If you take the words of the Sports Business Daily as gospel, you’ll know that just five of 24 LPGA events in the U.S. and Canada have title sponsor contracts beyond next year. Things are going to get worse before they get better. Bet on it.
The news isn’t all bad. CN bumped up the purse for the CN Canadian Open by half a million bucks to $2.75 million. Good news, but in the grand scheme of things it’s akin to plugging the dam with a stick of Juicy Fruit.
Then again, Bivens realizes that any purse increase is a morale-booster for the time being. When the phone rings inside her swank office, the person on the other end probably is calling with bad news more often than not.
At least it is something Bivens recognizes. She sees it coming.
Which means the LPGA Tour won’t be completely blindsided when this thing really hits.
Annika Sorenstam farewell a time we thought we’d never see
For Annika, this is it.
Or so we think. But more on that later.
We weren’t sure this week would ever come but, alas, here it is. The LPGA swan song for Annika Sorenstam.
If I were a betting man, I’d be laying a ten-spot on Annika one day, probably soon, making a return to the game she won’t be able to stay away from. I mean, really, do golfers ever really “retire”? Really?
OK, so she’s not even gone yet and we are talking about her return. Sounds like a country song. “How Can We Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?”
No matter. Annika will go down as the best women’s player ever. You may build a case that there was once another better, you can throw stats and resumes from Mickey Wright, Kathy Whitworth and Nancy Lopez, in my face from an era I never saw, yet still I will not blink. Annika is the best. Ever.
In her heyday, she seemingly won at will. From 2001 through 2005, she won 43 tournaments. Sit back, if you will, and digest that number. Rather Tiger-esque, no?
One could make an argument that she is the best golfer ever, period, however flimsy it might be. Of course, every person this side of Hootie Johnson will laugh at the suggestion, reserving that argument for the likes of Snead or Hogan, Nicklaus or Tiger.
But she deserves consideration, no matter how fleeting that may be.
Eight Player of the Year Awards. Eight times finishing atop the money list. The first LPGA Player to shoot 59. Her own personal career Grand Slam. 72 LPGA wins.
Annika helped convert a generation of fans who quite simply seemed to be losing interest in the LPGA Tour. When no one cared, she changed a perception.
The best golfer ever, period? That might be a stretch. But her numbers should have her mentioned in the same sentence as any player, man or woman, before her.
But when it comes to the LPGA Tour, there has never been a better player. She is the best. And notice I am not using the past tense.
Those tears you’ll see this week, from Annika and so many others, are temporary, this farewell coming with an asterisk attached.
Annika’s not done. She’ll be back.
It’s not time to say goodbye just yet.
FedEx Cup, version three, should follow the KISS rule
Maybe this time they’ll get it – as in the FedEx Cup –right.
Maybe. But don’t count on it.
Eventually, the law of averages suggests maybe, after emerging from the think tank for the third time, the PGA Tour will actually figure out a format that makes sense.
Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall when Tim Finchem is going over his year-end “To Do” checklist? Well, me neither, but I needed some sort of hook.
It probably goes something like this:
Release 2009 schedule. Check. Figure out how to spend that seven-figure bonus. Check. Place call to Tiger, thanking him for seven-figure bonus. Say hi to Elin, wishing her a comfy pregnancy, you know, just to stay in the good graces. Check.
Oh, and finally, blow up the Fed Ex Cup format yet again. Check.
Really, it can’t be that hard to get this right, can it? Surely it isn’t that complicated. Even for the braintrust in Orlando that has never heard of the KISS rule, or is too proud too admit it.
Hey boys, remember, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Don’t complicate things just to make it seem like you’re smarter than the rest of us. Turns out, in this case, you aren’t.
If you need to walk down the hall to Finchem’s office, you don’t have to ride down eight floors in the elevator then back up. Think of the FedEx Cup the same way.
Drop the complicated, pi equals 3.14159265 way of trying to figure out the point system.
It’s a golf tournament. Not brain surgery. Figure out a way to get the best players in the world together and make sure the FedEx Cup crown is decided on the final afternoon. Period. You know, for drama. Maximum exposure. Ratings. Duh.
In the sports world – heck, in anything, if you get my drift – there is something known as, uh, peaking too early. Trust me, it’s not a good thing.
If you want to make sure this goes down to the wire, roll the dice and implement a match play format for the final weekend. Semi finals and championship final on Sunday. Boom. Instant drama. Winner gets the FedEx Cup and $10 million.
Picture, if you can, Tiger and Sergio, Tiger and Vijay, Tiger and insert name here, battling down the back side in Sunday afternoon match play with the keys to the Brink’s truck up for grabs.
Makes sense, doesn’t it?
No wonder the PGA Tour has yet to think of it.
Erik Compton comes up just short but heart can never be questioned
Erik Compton wasn’t ready for this dream to end.
And yet there it came to a close in the shadows of a Florida autumn day Saturday, on the lush fairways of Southern Hills Plantation – or more precisely, the 16th green – his dream dashed for 2008. Who knows, maybe for good.
You never can tell with Compton, though. Just when you think he must be ready to give up, ready to surrender, he defies both odds and logic yet again.
It was the par-5 16th where Compton’s inspirational, if unlikely, run to the PGA Tour came to a premature end, six months after his second heart transplant. Home in two and looking for an eagle, Compton got a little too aggressive, rolling the putt four feet past the hole. The birdie try coming back wouldn’t drop either. Par wasn’t good enough, not on 16. Or 17. Or 18.
Compton ran out of holes.
And along with it, ran out of chances.
When it was all over, he was one shot shy. He took 282 swings all week.
He needed to make 281.
“If you live and die by the way I play and live life, it will catch up with you,” said Compton in an interview after his round Saturday. “Maybe this is for the best. I’ll go back and relax. Maybe I’ll do some teaching, playing in a few tournaments.”
“I’m a big believer in fate.”
Most observers will tell you Compton deserved a better one. In the end, though, perhaps it was just not to be.
But Compton didn’t fail nor did he actually come up short. You can’t attach those tags to a guy who, last spring, was getting a new heart put in his chest.
Giving up, in anything, is just not Erik Compton’s way. Not when he underwent his first heart transplant at age 12. Not when he turned into a national amateur star at the University of Georgia.
Not when he won the Canadian Tour’s Order of Merit in 2004. Not five months ago when underwent another transplant.
Sure as heck not now.
Perhaps Compton’s time will come.
Right now, it just wasn’t meant to be.
Or maybe someone was telling him to slow it down a little.
PGA Tour schedule not necessarily sign of things to come
Morality doesn’t seem to be the strongest of points for Tim Finchem and the suits that run the PGA Tour.
While announcing a 2009 schedule that will see an increase in overall prize money, Finchem almost appeared smug suggesting the PGA Tour had risen above the current economic meltdown that is costing people their life savings, their homes, their jobs.
“I’m delighted to say that the demise of the PGA Tour has been overstated considerably,” Finchem said.
Congratulations. Seeing how the ink has long since dried on contracts for the 2009 season, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that things are pretty much status quo for ’09. Those terms were indeed etched in stone long ago. Getting out of a PGA Tour contract, recession or not, isn’t as easy as picking up the phone. Chances are if a company wants to opt out of their contract, there had best be a bankruptcy sign on the front door.
But still, things may not be as rosy as Finchem wants you to belive.
You see, Wachovia remains on the 2009 schedule despite going belly up and taken over by – oh, sorry, to be politically correct, merging with – Wells Fargo. They can’t get out of the contract, so they’ll let it run its course. We’ll see what happens when the time comes to extend the deal.
There remains not one but two Buick events, although it is a flip of the coin whether or not General Motors will be in bankruptcy court in the next of months. Assuming GM is a slam-dunk partner for the future is not in the best interests of Finchem.
Should the economy continue to drop faster than the knickers at a frat house pool party, many title sponsors will be turning away come renewal time. When you are laying off employees and closing doors, you have a lot to answer for if your think tank is sitting in a hospitality tent overlooking the 18th green after forking out $7 or $8 million to the PGA Tour.
The sporting association least likely to take an all-out beating would be the NFL marketing machine, who essentially have a license to print money regardless of how the Dow reads at day’s end.
Everyone else is fair game: MLB, NBA, NHL, NASCAR…pick your poison.
Yes, even the PGA Tour. Come renewal time, let’s see if Finchem and his tour fat cats are singing the same “I told you so” tune.
When you don’t have enough to make the mortgage, you are giving up your seats. Simple economics, really.
As for the 2009 season, the PGA Tour will continue to plow ahead, financial crisis and foreclosures be damned. Players will compete for $222.9 million in coin, up from $214.4 this year.
It is something Tim Finchem seems proud of. Crisis? What crisis?
It’s safe to say there won’t be many faces from the PGA Tour on the soup line.
That could change in a hurry. Then, it will be welcome to the real world.
Fairways Web Editor Marty Henwood spent more than six years as the Media Relations Director with the Canadian Tour and has been involved in sports journalism for more than a decade, including stints in newspaper, radio, new media and media relations. He will offer his unique take on the world of golf, with nothing and no one off limits.