Professional Golf Needs More Match Play
For years now we’ve all been lead to believe that match play isn’t a viable format for TV. The past two weeks should go a long way to dispelling that theory.
Both the PGA Tour and the people who run professional golf telecasts have acknowledged the excitement of match play, especially if you get two highly ranked marquee players in the final. But then they turn around and warn that a final pairing of Kevin Sutherland and Chad Campbell (my choice for two players barely registering a pulse) would cause ratings to drop lower than the Toledo Ladies 5-pin Finals.
Last week, the Ryder Cup delivered the most compelling golf all year outside the four majors. The Sunday matches were tense and exciting with most of them very close. Granted the Ryder Cup format brings patriotism into play and that’s hard to top on a weekly basis but the head to head singles matches delivered some personality clashes and raw emotion that is missing on the regular PGA Tour.
This Sunday, the final of the Tour Championship pitted four of the top ranked players in the world in a tight race to the finish. Apart from Ben Curtis sinking a couple of birdie putts and Kenny Perry making a bomb from another area code, the entire telecast was devoted to Sergio Garcia, Camilo Villegas, Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson. With all four players in the last two groups it had a match play feeling to it.
When you think about most golf telecasts, the focus is always on the leading players and the rest of the field is pretty much ignored. If all the coverage is on the top few players anyway, then why not create additional drama by getting some personality involved. The best way to do that is with a series of matches where players go at it, mano a mano.
The Tour is headed for some serious uncertainty on the financial front in the next few years. Banks, investment companies and auto manufacturers have been the mainstay of sponsorship for many years and each of those sectors is in trouble today. The ability to attract new sponsors may mean remaking the product. Not every field can have Tiger so the ones that don’t might look to alternative formats to lure sponsors and viewers.
One aspect of marketing that is ignored by the Tour is the relationships between the players themselves. There are real rivalries between some players and they could be exploited in a match play environment if the TV announcers had the guts to talk about them. It seems to work for NASCAR, WWE, Ultimate Fighting and tennis. Unfortunately the PGA Tour wants to deliver the saccharine version to America so the rivalries and feuds are never discussed. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if pro golf had a bad boy?
I’m not suggesting that the PGA Tour needs to follow the route of professional wrestling but they might learn something from those sports that are able to exploit personality as part of their marketing. “These guys are good” is OK but a “Vijay Singh / Phil Mickelson Smackdown” sounds like a lot more fun.
Tour Championship decides it all …. or does it?
The PGA Tour wraps up this week in Atlanta with the Tour Championship to determine the FedEx Cup winner and the final order of the Top 30 players in 2008. No, wait a minute. Vijay Singh already won the FedEx Cup and just has to show up for the weekend to collect his $10 million.
OK, so at least we’ll have an entertaining tournament where thirty players compete for the Tour Championship trophy, secure in the knowledge that their exalted Top 30 status is going to get them into all kinds of invitational events plus the Masters, US Open and British Open, right? Whoa again! It’s not that simple.
Apparently after this Top 30 group winds up the playoffs, another batch of players keep going for six more weeks and some of them can actually move into the Top 30, knocking some of the current residents out. Confused yet? If you are, you’re not alone.
It’s all part of Tim Finchem’s grand plan to make his Tour more important than the four Majors. Unfortunately for Tim, the players are confused and the fans are fed up. It’s no wonder they turn to NFL Football come Labour Day.
The big game this weekend is the Redskins versus the Cowboys. On the PGA Tour you should tune in November 6-9 to catch the “Children’s Miracle Network presented by Wal-Mart” (formerly the Disney tournament) which will be the real final event of the 2008 season. Or will it?
The FedEx Cup Playoffs are a Joke
I’m on record as being an ardent non-supporter of the whole FedEx Cup scheme. As a golf traditionalist, I believe the four Majors – and there are only four Tim – are the crowning achievement for most players in any given season or over a career. The fact that there is a big cheque attached to winning the FedEx Cup is a huge incentive for the players but I don’t believe that anybody will care who won or how many they won five, ten or fifty years from now. On the other hand, Major winners are revered forever.
One of the reasons I don’t like the FedEx Cup this year is that the outcome is already known and there is still one event to play. Unless he fails to complete four rounds of play in the Tour Championship, Vijay Singh will win the 2008 FedEx Cup based on his victories in the first two playoff events. Nobody can catch him now.
What kind of playoff system determines the winner before the final game? This is like Detroit and Pittsburgh playing the sixth game of the Stanley Cup finals after Detroit had clinched the Cup in five. Sure the PGA Tour still needs to determine the winner of the season long Money race but unless Tiger Woods rebounds from knee surgery faster than anticipated, nobody can catch Vijay there either. So all that’s left is thirty guys playing for a whack of cash with nothing else on the line. Sounds kinda like what happens on the PGA Tour every week anyway.
In the off season, the Tour will once again fiddle with the FedEx Cup format to try and a) make the season meaningful; b) provide the right amount of volatility and c) try to ensure it’s still a wide open race all the way to the Tour Championship.
Fiddle away! As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t work; it doesn’t generate any extra excitement and I don’t believe anybody cares. Time to admit that this FedEx package is undeliverable!
LPGA’s Speak English policy isn’t as bad as you think; it’s worse
By requiring all of its non-English speaking players to learn the language within two years or face suspension, the LPGA has found itself in maybe the biggest public relations nightmare since, since, since …..oh yeah, since LPGA Commissioner Caroline Bivens tried to manipulate the media at an event in Hawaii. If you look up the word bungle in the dictionary, there should be at least one reference to the LPGA, now maybe two.
The LPGA is trying, in a very awkward fashion, to make itself more relateable to sponsors, viewers and pro am partners. The large number of foreign-born players, particularly South Koreans, who have come to dominate the leaderboard each week, apparently isn’t a saleable commodity for the sponsor driven tour. That the LPGA is trying to educate its players with language training is commendable but the heavy handed approach may end up costing the Tour some sponsors and maybe more than a few of the top players.
NEWS FLASH – The LPGA just announced that all of the fat players on Tour will have to trim down within two years or face suspension.
The LPGA should and could market itself as the only true world golf tour. With events in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia the LPGA is clearly reaching beyond American borders to other countries and cultures. The English only policy flies in the face of that strategy. At a time when the Tour should be celebrating its worldwide support, ethnic diversity and inclusionary policies, it shoots itself in the collective foot.
NEWS FLASH – The LPGA just announced that all of the ugly girls on Tour must get plastic surgery within two years or face suspension.
As Commissioner Bivens goes into bunker mode, this firestorm won’t blow over quickly. Heads may roll at LPGA Tour headquarters. So far the only people who have come out in support of the language policy are several white supremicist fringe groups and various factions of the Rush Limbaugh Fan Club. The LPGA players have condemned it as have most athletes around the world. As you would expect, their belief is that talent and accomplishment will get you to the top and keep you there, regardless of what language you speak.
NEWS FLASH – (December 2010) – The LPGA announced today that in addition to Natalie Gulbis, Paula Creamer and Erica Blasberg, the 2011 player roster will consist of six Swedes and Lorena Ochoa. Several other players were close to making the cut but were highly critical of the LPGA for holding the final weigh-in just after Thanksgiving..
Oh what I would give to be a fly on the wall at the next players meeting!
Peter Mumford is the Editor and Publisher of Fairways Magazine in Toronto. Fairways is intended for avid golfers and this blog site is an extension of that same philosophy - we don't dumb it down for the uninformed!