When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Actually, he just likes the milkshakes and I'm sure he'll be teeing it up in his first non-senior major at the Jeld-Wen in a few weeks. Oh wait, that's a major! Hard to keep track.
Speaking of the Champions Tour, check out John Hawkins' take on the ratings deprived Tour that once used to be popular when it didn't care about catering to 18-34 year olds and was called the Senior Tour.
Vartan Kupelian paired up the LPGA and Champions Tours in a comparison story, primarily to see if Carolyn Bivens could outdule Rick George in the inane quote department. You be the judge.
"We don't compare ourselves to them at all because what we do is unique, the way we've positioned our tour, hitting a different group of people who are going to watch this," George said.
But that doesn't necessarily mean a single demographic.
"We're always trying to hit different demographics to grow our fan base," George said. "It's important for us to continue to look at different demographics it's not all geared to one segment of the population."
Demographics. Yawn. The Brand Lady offers slick analogies.
"We appeal to a totally different audience, different sponsors," Bivens said. "It's as different as the NBA and professional bowling."
Oh but this is may be her best.
Bivens compares the bumps off the course "to changing tires on a car going 100 miles an hour."
That's why she gets the big bucks.
We've heard this nonsense before, but it's still breathtaking.
Bivens' goal is to "monetize the success and interest" in the LPGA and making money often means rubbing people the wrong way.
"Somebody has to stand up and say, 'This is what we're doing and where we're going,' " she said.
"I didn't take the job for the money. I didn't take the job to be voted Miss Congeniality. I don't like the controlling person I read about -- it's not who I am."
And just to show he's in his own unique world too, George says...
"Our attendance continues to get better, not as much as we'd like but better," he said. "The sponsor base is stronger than it has been. We're in terrific shape and with an eye toward the end of the year when seven prominent PGA Tour players are coming out."
Coming out? Oh right, you mean...gotcha.
Kupelian spoils George's optimism pretty quickly.
That's not always the perception. Television images show small crowds more often than not, and exposure of the Champions Tour is well down the pecking order in newscasts and newspapers unless the over-50 set is in town. It's easy to reach the conclusion that the Champions Tour is floundering until someone stops to consider that the seniors are divvying up $52.7 million in prize money annually -- a veritable windfall of lottery proportions -- and sponsors continue to pony up.
"An endorsement of what we're doing is that we've had eight (contract) renewals in 10 months," George said. "And we anticipate more. The perception should be that the Champions Tour has really solidified its position and our opportunity now is to grow."
They're growing! And they're interacting...
"If you look at the Champions Tour today, the way our players go out of the way to interact and engage, is better than any sport, not just golf.
"We think we're one of the best business-to-business marketing opportunities in all our sports. We haven't lost focus of one of the integral pieces of our business -- interaction with sponsors' guests and clients and the fans who come out."
Hmmm...George wins with that last minute run that is sure to give Champions Tour players chest pains.
The horror of a player going low! Shameful. The sky is falling! Nice going Loren. Now the setup next year at...oh wherever it is, will be a massacre!
Jim Achenbach catches up with Mac O'Grady, who qualified for this week's U.S. Senior Open at Prairie Dunes:
His long-awaited instruction book, however, has taken a back seat to the completion of his fictional and fanciful account of life on the PGA Tour, called Seve The Commissioner in honor of his friend Ballesteros.
"There is much truth in this story," O'Grady said of the book, which has yet to be published.
"People wait for great art, and they will have to wait for this book," he said. "There is no ego involved here. I am in no hurry."
The book crusades against technological advances in golf such as metalwoods and the 60-degree wedge.
Ironically, O'Grady's bag at the Senior Open contained a Ping G5 titanium driver and a Ping 60-degree wedge. His irons were Ben Hogan blades.
"What can you do?" he asked. "These guys still outhit me. The steroids in golf are not in the golfers; the steroids are in the balls and clubs."
"It's just a work of art, nothing short of a work of art," said Crenshaw, the tour's resident historian. "It's so unique. There's nothing like it in this country, really. With this course, any person from the British Isles would come and say, 'Oh My God, I'm home' with all these undulations and sandhills."I'm not so sure about this though...
Crenshaw, like Tom Watson, loves the setup of the course with its narrow fairways, high rough and slick, unforgiving greens. Now the only thing missing is the wind, which kicked up to about 20 miles per hour at midday but was about half that strong in the early evening when the players and fans were called off the course because of the threat of severe weather.
Jay Haas doesn't like carts returning to the Valiant Competitors Senior Champions Tour:
"I'd like it to go back to no carts," said Jay Haas, at 52 a relative youth on the Champions Tour. "It just seems right. It seems like if spectators can go out and walk, we can, too. It's part of the competition."
I'd make a joke about needing spectators to actually make it an issue, but that would be way too easy.
Someday, when the Champions Tour has been put out to pasture and folks wonder how something once so successful was run into the ground, they can watch the 2006 Legends of Golf and say, "ah, now I see why it died."
Cart-free didn't do much for the Champions Tour, so they're coming back according to Bill Fields in Golf World.
Of course, the PGA Tour's Rick George remains sure he made the right move.
In a statement released today, George said: "The tour continues to believe the presentation of our tournaments and the on-site fan experience is enhanced when competitions don't features carts and players walk. However, due to ongoing requests made by a number of players, we have concluded that carts will be made available on a more frequent basis to those wishing to use them."
As recently as last month the seniors' player advisory council was in favor of upholding the ban. But when the policy board met Monday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., the group's four independent directors and the four player directors on the PGA Tour were swayed by the unanimous stance to return carts by Champions Tour player directors Jim Colbert, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Purtzer and Leonard Thompson, Purtzer told Golf World.
"If the players are 4-0 for something, they traditionally haven't been overridden," said Purtzer, a cart advocate who is plagued by a painful back condition. "It came down to the directors voting because they knew a majority of the players wanted carts back. A couple of the independent directors said they weren't in total agreement but appreciated the fight we had put up. It kind of came to down to the belief that 'you guys know what's best for your tour.'"
Now, about the name of the Tour...
Tom Hanson upset some of the Champions Tour players with a column he wrote, and he offers an entertaining follow up.
OK, I'll concede that there are plenty of big names — Eichelberger (11 letters) Summerhays (10), San Filippo (10), Karbowski (9) — out on the Champions Tour.
Unfortunately those names don't get me fired up as much as the players are about their tour.
One of Tillinghast's finest gets a senior major. Very nice upgrade.
With its season concluding, here's a look at the Champions Tour driving distance leaders through the years:
Yes, that's right, the Senior/Valiant Competitors/Champions Tour leader in driving distance is up 36 yards from 1988 to 2005.
If only those guys would have been working out in the late 80s...
The distance leader in 1988 at 264.9 (Bob Boldt), would have placed 63rd in 2005, just ahead of the notoriously long hitting Morris Hatalsky.
The Jeld Wen,
Jen Weld, whatever it's called, wraps up the Champions Tour major
season. Pretty soon they're going to have more majors than regular
events on that Tour. I think I'll stick to the Amateur at Merion.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
