"It's like worrying about the weather to some extent, but you've certainly got to have your raincoat on."

Chris Millard summarizes the economic crisis' impact on golf and shares this from Commissioner Finchem:

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem strikes a veteran tone when asked about challenges facing the tour in 2009.

"You just have to react to it," he says. "It's like worrying about the weather to some extent, but you've certainly got to have your raincoat on. You've got to work harder to deal with it. You've got to make sure that you're doing what has made you successful before, because we've been through these before, and we've come through them quite well."

Nothing like a good raincoat metaphor to start your day, eh? At least he wasn't using it in the other raincoat vein.

This next item could be why there has been no 2009 schedule release. The Commish is coming into the Sherwood cart barn to answer press questions Saturday, so perhaps this has been resolved:

The biggest question mark on the 2009 PGA Tour is the Wachovia Championship. With the impending purchase of Wachovia by Wells Fargo, the sponsorship and the championship remain in limbo. According to Ty Votaw, the tour's executive vice president of communications and international affairs, Wells Fargo can still be expected to stage the event. "They assume the contract of Wachovia," he says. "They're the successor organization."

Wells Fargo isn't so sure. Company spokeswoman Heather Schow told Golf Digest on Oct. 30, "We are still separate companies, and no decisions have been made as to how Wells Fargo and Wachovia will combine their sponsorship activities."

And about those ironclad contracts...

Broader concerns lie in the tour's overall sponsor mix. In 2008, the PGA Tour calendar had six tournaments title-sponsored by automobile manufacturers and 14 tournaments titled by financial-services/insurance companies.

"Fact of the matter is that if somebody comes up and says, 'Look, we can't pay—sue us,' that's not in the best interest of the tour," says Alexander, who foresees some negative pressure on the tour in 2009 but expresses confidence in the tour's ability to withstand it. It's the organization's lesser tours—the Champions and Nationwide tours—where he believes the greatest impact could be felt.