Saturday
Feb102007
Harding to Host...
The Western Open the BMW Championship! But it'll be spun as falling in line with the old Western, which moved around the country and was once played at Presidio.
Maybe that year they could play the Western in Chicago on July 4 weekend? Just a thought. The date is open.
Hey, did you know Laurie Auchterlonie won the second BMW Championship at Midlothian? Just an FYI.
Anyway, Ron Kroichick details the move and Harding getting the President's Cup in '09 despite the temptation to bring it to Riviera so that they could play before lackluster crowds and even less enthusiastic corporate support.
The revised deal also will bring the BMW Championship, one of the PGA Tour's "playoff" tournaments, to Harding in 2013 or '14. That event, scheduled this year for Sept. 6-9 outside Chicago, is the third of four postseason tournaments in the tour's new FedEx Cup schedule, a yearlong points race designed to create a climactic finish to the season.
Harding would host one other elite-field, PGA Tour event in the next 12 years, plus the Schwab Cup, the Champions Tour's season-ending tournament, in 2010 and 2011.
The original contract between the city and tour called for five marquee events at Harding over a 15-year period. San Francisco officials hoped those tournaments would help pay for the course's extensive renovation in 2002 and '03, which was projected to cost $16 million but ran more than $7 million over budget.
Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Reader Comments (14)
But this is very sad news for Chicago golf fans if this is true. A pox on the Western Golf Association officials who sold out such a prestigious event and Chicago fans. Looks like our tournament now exists for the Tour to have its way.
Why did not the Tour make this announcement first, as it usually does?
Heh, heh, heh.
The original contract between the city and tour called for five marquee events at Harding over a 15-year period.
Plus the Schwab Cup, the Champions Tour's season-ending tournament, in 2010 and 2011.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2006/10/26/SPGH9LVS891.DTL&type=golf
As the Schwab Cup Championship begins today in Sonoma, this much is clear: The Champions Tour needs a jolt of star power. Palmer and Nicklaus no longer play; Lee Trevino and Gary Player no longer are competitive, and Greg Norman seldom has surfaced for air since he turned 50 last year.
It should not be surprising, then, to learn television ratings are "down slightly" from 2005.
According to Champions Tour president Rick George. The PGA Tour and The Golf Channel have an agreement not to reveal exact TV numbers, probably because they're embarrassingly low.
But NBC's telecasts of three events this year (the Senior PGA Championship, the U.S. Senior Open and the First Tee Open) were watched by about 1 percent of U.S. households with television. That's roughly the same as last year and down significantly from four years ago.
"That's not a good piece of news," George said of the overall ratings decline from '05 to '06.
Wednesday's scene in Sonoma could not be considered encouraging. As D.A. Weibring smacked his pro-am tee shot on No. 1 just before 1 p.m., three people sat in the nearby grandstands eating hot dogs and chuckling. Soon thereafter, exactly one person sat behind the No. 9 green and sneezed while watching another group walk up the fairway.
Timmy's trying to pass off two Schwab Cup Championships on the Senior Tour to Harding Park in 2010 and 11? Will the Champions Tour still be around by then?
Join us at host club Harding Park for the Nationwide Tour Championship next year Nov 5th - 8th, 2019.
The PVB posse overbooked themselves, but in light of recent news in Denver, D.C. and western PA, this should be considered a decent compromise. The PC has arguably become a more compelling event than the RC and Valhalla will make writers wax poetic on the Belfry, K Club and PGA National.
Not only was Harding in disrepair, it was used as a parking lot for the last two Opens at Olympic. The atmosphere at the 05 AMEX was incredible and the players loved the course. The Sonoma attendance was terrible, but it will be a different story at Harding. Chuck can always bus in his employees from hdqtrs. in the financial district if need be.
The extra $7 million was for the clubhouse by the way.
Enough about TV ratings. It is a flawed system in the TiVo/cable/dish age, purses are still healthy and we have not heard from one sponsor that has pulled out of an event citing poor ratings and a refusal from the Tour or networks to adjust their ad rates accordingly. Rating fluctuations in sports are known by advertisers before they sign on (with or without Tiger). Sporting events are unscripted...there are no weather delays, 10 stroke leads or anonymous extras trading places with the lead actors on CSI.
I wonder if any money will be allocated to rebuilding Sharp Park or Lincoln Park golf courses?
I have heard recently from a TPC official (bias source I admit) that Finchem would love to make Avenel (depending on how successful the $25M redo is) the pernament home of the PC starting in 2009.
JC
There's also a followup story on the Chronicle website with player quotes about the moves:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2007/02/11/SPGUNO2R1C1.DTL
Paging Ralph Schrader, Ralph Schrader, pick up line 4, a Mr. Jack Vickers and a Mr. Joe Hardy along with a representative for the Western Golf Association would like a conference chat with you about resurrecting the second oldest golf Championship, and 5th major, the WESTERN OPEN. Line 4 Mr. Schrader.
Unfortunately, the losers are more than the golf fans of Chicago -- we'll survive just as we survive our ridiculous winters (Mom, I'll be home next week, tell We-Ko-Pa to save me a tee time). But who's going to make up for the $$ lost for the Evans scholars program? The PV boys are certainly not going to take the money out of their pensions. . .
The budget to keep Evans Scholars (deserving, needy caddies) in college currently runs in the $10 million to $12 million range each year.
Of that, the Western Open usually nets about $3 million to $4 million.
The rest comes mainly from donations (mostly Par Club members) and interest from endowments.
Much of the interest in being a Par Club member stems from the higher levels of membership getting tickets & perks for the Western Open. This would drop severely if there was no tournament.
The WGA has no contract and therefore no guarantee that it will administer (they handle all operations) a PGA Tour event after the current six-year contract expires in 2012. Since the WGA was not notified of or consulted about the Tour's intent to move the BMW to the West Coast in 2013 or 2014, it appears the Tour has no intentions of continuing its long relationship with the Western GA. WGA principals found out about the Harding Park agreement when called for comment yesterday morning.
One of the reasons for the move to Harding Park is that the Tour promised to help with the $27 million debt service by bringing "big" events in. Like the BMW -- if it played at Harding the revenue would go to the city to reduce the debt on the golf course -- and NOT to the WGA, which would at that point be out of the mix.
So, in essence, the PGA Tour used FECES to hijack -- no, make that eviscerate -- the storied Western Open, the oldest PGA Tour event. They destroyed the title of the event, they moved it from its home course -- and the headquarters city of the WGA -- and now Timmy will use it to pay off promises he should never have made.
The WGA's hierarchy was told by the Tour last year if it accepted dropping the "Western" name and the move to September dates as part of the FECES, the Evans Scholars would receive "more" money. However, the WGA brainiacs did not seek a guarantee of how much more, in my opinion a fatal mistake.
So we can count on three PGA Tour events in Chicago over the next six years, and none beyond that. Shoot, in the early part of this decade Chicago had the quinella of pro golf events each season -- Nationwide, LPGA, Champions and PGA tours. Next year, the nation's third largest market (and a great golf town) will have only one -- the "developmental" NW Tour.
Jeezus, Tim -- what the freak are you thinking?
Trust me -- the golf community and spectators in Chicago are very, very pissed off right now.
4p
The above was an e-mail sent to WGA Directors today.
As for the potential loss of funds, John V asserts we don't have to worry. Is an event with 70 players going to bring in as many people as a full field event? What was the attendance at the Tour Championship last year compared to the Western?
And what about the army of volunteers who take the 4th of July week off to participate in the tournament? Can they, will they be able to do so in September?
I am sure that the folks at Chicagoland Golf (one of our local publications) will be all over this debacle in the coming months. What a clusterfu&* the boys in PV are in the process of creating. . .
Ok screw Timmy and BMW, Chicago wants its WESTERN OPEN back, and they want it every year.
Tiger played every year in it, so the Western Golf Association should get Buick to become title sponsor, now everyone is happy, and it resumes its July 4th date.
Buick sells a lot of cars in the nations third largest market, they would do this deal in a heartbeat.