Stanford Financial Clippings

Steve Elling labels the Stanford Financial charges a disaster and Bob Harig manages to wrangle a quote out of the LPGA spokesman who says they are monitoring the situation.

Geoff Caulkins talks to a FedEx briefcase and it sure sounds like the air freight giant is already in talks to rescue the Memphis stop they once sponsored.

Martha Graybow of Reuters says the case raises new questions about the SEC. But I found some of the timing mentioned interesting considering the LPGA just recently signed up (Nov. 19) Stanford for its Tour Championship despite this:

A complaint filed last year against Stanford's firm by two former employees contended they were aware of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into the firm's sales practices while they worked there.

The employees, Mark Tidwell and Charles Rawl, said in their Texas state court lawsuit that they left rather than participate in unlawful business practices. They departed in late 2007.

A Guardian blog post by Andy Bull examines the likelihood of poor due diligence performed by the England and Wales Cricket Board before taking Stanford's sponsorship money. So will questions will be raised about the due dilligence carried out by the PGA and LPGA Tours who are so visibly leaning on Stanford?

More immediately, the Stanford Financial "Eagles for St. Jude" spots should prove to be uncomfortable for the Golf Channel anchor who has to note the program. As should future airings of these ads:

Stanford Financial Raided By U.S. Marshalls**

Oops. Now this should test those ironclad PGA Tour contracts. And on the LPGA side, ADT must be looking better and better down at headquarters.

Update on 2009-02-17 22:32 by Geoff

**The Commissioner weighs in:

STATEMENT FROM PGA TOUR COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM REGARDING ALLEN STANFORD

We have no comment regarding the situation with Allen Stanford and certain of his companies at this time.

However, we want to categorically state that the PGA TOUR event in Memphis will be played as scheduled this year.

Update on 2009-02-17 22:38 by Geoff

Thanks to reader Jim for this story which fleshes out the sports angle a bit more including Vijay Singh's possible exposure.

"Stanford Depositors Head to Antigua for Redemptions"

Thanks to a reader for this WSJ story on investors arriving in Antiqua to withdraw their money from offshore accounts of Stanford Financial. It doesn't sound good, and as the reader reminded me, Stanford's ties to the PGA Tour extend beyond the Memphis event and the LPGA's season ending Tour Championship, with major IMG endorsement deals and the eagles for St. Jude program on the PGA and LPGA Tours.

PGA Tour Sponsor Under Federal Scrutiny

Thanks to reader Chris for pointing out the Stanford Financial investigation. Julie Creswell of the New York Times does not paint a pretty picture of the company, including the odd claims of a tie to the Stanford family.

PGA Tour Investigating Whether Poppy Hills Is Too Awful To Continue As Venue

That'll be a short investigation.

Still, Thomas Bonk reports that Ponte Vedra is analyzing the merits of shaking up the rotation and moving to recently renovated Fort Ord. And he shares this non-denial denial from a Fort Ord guy:

Ed Bennett, project manager for Bayonet and Black Horse said that discussions are underway that involve the course as a potential tournament site. "There have been rumors for years since Poppy Hills came on the scene that some tour players didn't like it. But we are in the middle of an exciting tournament at a different course and talking too much about a different product right now doesn't seem right."

A different product? That could be one of the nicest things anyone has ever called Poppy Hills.

Plainfield To Host 2010 Barclay's

Rex Hoggard reports on the Ross gem landing the event and making for quite a contrast to 2009 host, Liberty National.

"But who would have thought when they picked up the 2009 media guide that they'd see Weir, Steve Marino and Lucas Glover with full beards?"

Garry Smits posts an item about the possible PGA Tour appearance crack down, with this study of the media guide:

There are 312 players photographed in the fully-exempt section and the conditionally exempt section combined. Of that number, 53 players have hair clearly below the collar, mustaches, full beards, goatees or simply varying growths of beards appearing to be anywhere from a few days to a week's worth of non-application of the razor.

In the 1999 media guide, 10 years in the past, there are 288 players pictured in the two sections. Only 22 of them had facial hair or long hair, nine among the fully exempt section.

Some players have always had some growth of hair. In addition to the aforementioned Bryant and Villegas, Marco Dawson, Jerry Kelly, Ian Poulter and Frank Lickliter are at least consistent.

But who would have thought when they picked up the 2009 media guide that they'd see Weir, Steve Marino and Lucas Glover with full beards? Or the usually immaculate Trevor Immelman and the fashionable Brett Quigley having their photos taken without having shaved for a few days?

Follow Up: "More A Guide Than A Policy"

Regarding the debate about player appearance and the PGA Tour's possible crackdown on the daily Ratso Rizzo tributes that have become commonplace, I'm leaning toward the side of headquarters in wanting to see players clean things up a bit. I know, the possibility of a directive from Ponte Vedra dictating shaving frequency or haircut recommendations is a tad frightening.

If the tour makes their point carefully and shrewdly, they will be doing their players a service. If they break out in jargon and legalese or sound like Sister Shrewd from Our Lady Of Perpetual Misery, then there should be some fun player-only meetings this summer.

The PGA Tour sells itself as displaying the talents of fairly humble, clean, civilized athletes. This has led most of us to find the modern day professional quite boring, while making the players quite rich. Lately, the tour has encouraged and tried desperately to market some of the quirkier personalities like Boo Weekley or Charley Hoffman or anyone else who shows signs of individuality.  As Evan Rothman noted in a recent piece for Golfweek.com, it's a good thing that the PGA Tour has tried to loosen up a bit and embraced the characters or the party scene at Scottsdale, all in the name of livening things up.

But like men's tennis in the 90s and early 21st century, the players have taken this theme a bit far, becoming grittier, cockier and all the way much less multi-dimensional in the way they play, making it very hard to get excited about cheering them on. Throw in lean economic times, lousy ratings and the players need to do their part to keep the old ladies tuning in and the corporate drones happy, like it or not. So yes, that will mean shaving more often or even losing the Bozo the clown look by getting a haircut now and then.

If the tour explains that this is a take it or leave it suggestion for their benefit, I suspect some players will respond. If the tour issues a multi-point memo that reads like it was drafted by an SS grooming expert, this could snowball into a, gulp, messy situation.

"any Swede"

The March issue of Golf Digest features an anonymous PGA Tour player survey and includes some pretty fun questions. My two favs:

WHO'S THE SLOWEST PLAYER ON TOUR?
Ben Crane: 43%
J.B. Holmes: 32%
Glen Day: 11%
OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES: Michael Allen, Jason Allred, Tiger Woods, "any Swede"

What is it about the Swedes, anyway?

NAME ONE GOLF ANNOUNCER YOU COULD LIVE WITHOUT
Kelly Tilghman: 30%
Nick Faldo: 17%
Peter Kostis: 13%
Johnny Miller: 9%
OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES: Curt Byrum, Bobby Clampett, Brian Hammons, John Hawkins, Renton Laidlaw, Dave Marr III, Gary McCord, Mark Rolfing

Congrats Peter!

PGA Tour Preparing To Issue APB For Repeat "Overall Appearance" Violators

John Hawkins reports that guidelines are being drawin up and Colonel Rick George will be supervising the effort to clean up the PGA Tour's grungiest.

In reality, it probably won't deter Sergio Garcia from showing up with a four-day growth, which can't be nearly as offensive as those canary-yellow pants he wore at the British Open a few years back. "More of a guide than a policy," is how George characterizes the company position. "There are no parameters, per se. We just want the players to be neatly groomed, and there are a lot of ways to interpret that. We want them to be mindful of their overall appearance."

How worried should the players be about fines and enforcement? Uh, Hawk reminds us how seriously they take slow play. Oops!

If the tour looks the other way when it comes to slow play, one can't envision a guy getting fined $1,000 for hiding a pimple on his chin. You can appeal to the world's best golfers with a voice of gentle reason, and as long as the courtesy cars keep showing up, they will do what is in the best interests of the game, but laying down some murky law? Good luck.

“They need to spread the wealth or my fear is that the PGA Tour may become the tennis tour"

Jon Show considers the many ways the PGA Tour could beef up the client-player experience, and while I enjoyed reading about the need for players to attend more cocktail parties so they could hear inane stories and share tips that won't work, this part is really what it still comes down too:

Players must commit to a minimum of 15 events to keep their tour cards. Most top players average around 20 events; Woods played 15 and 16 events his last two full seasons, down from a high of 21 in 2005.

“The power in golf is shifting into the hands of the players at a time when the players need to understand their importance to each community,” Seymour said. “That’s critical because they will kill the golden goose if they do not give back.”

Players have opposed the creation of a rule requiring them to play in every event within a certain number of years; Davis Love III, a player advisory council member, most recently voiced his resistance. But support is growing outside the locker room for something similar to the LPGA’s rule requiring the women to enter every tournament at least once every four years.

“They need to spread the wealth or my fear is that the PGA Tour may become the tennis tour,” said Bill Colvin, who consults on marketing for a number of PGA Tour sponsors.

So there is one good bit of news in this economic crisis: fewer (if any) competing events in the vein of Milwaukee or Reno in the coming years should help free up a few weeks on schedules, no?

PGA Tour Stengthens Sponsor Platform Ties By Filing Lawsuit Against Sponsor

Garry Smits reports on the lawsuit filed today over Ginn pulling out of their sponsorship obligations. Geese, it's just a Champions Tour event!

The Tour issued a statement to the Times-Union Friday afternoon on the matter. The statement was sent by the Tour's communications department.

"We regret having to take this legal action, but feel we have no other recourse than to try to recover what had been guaranteed to our members through existing agreements with Ginn Companies," the statement said. "We also had no forewarning that Ginn was planning to cancel the 2009 Ginn Championship at Hammock Dunes, and only learned of the decision when the company issued a release late Wednesday. In fact, we had been in discussions with them on possible modifications to the agreement. Until this issue is resolved through the legal process, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time."

Ryan Julison, senior vice-president for corporate communications for Ginn Resorts, said there would be "no comment on pending litigation."

That's not a very original comeback!

Steve Elling also reports and notes several interesting bits about the suit, including this:

According to the filing, the tour was notified by Ginn president Robert Gidel last August that it was going to cancel its sponsored PGA Tour event, the Ginn sur Mer Classic, after its staging last fall. It also served notice that the March 2009 staging of the Champion's Tour's Ginn Championship at Hammock Beach would be the last for that tournament.

With this week's announcement from Ginn, the Champions event won't happen, either. Interestingly, the Ginn sur Mer ended Nov. 2, which meant that while the tour and Ginn officials were publicly maintaining that no determination had been made on future of the Fall Series tournament, plans were well under way to shut it down.

"Drawing lines in the sand is not going to solve problems, it's going to create problems." **

I doubt anyone was surprised by the news Ginn was pulling out of its two LPGA and one Champions event since word of their bankruptcy hasn't exactly been a state secret. Wait, what was that Ty?

"We were involved in discussions to address whatever issues there may have been in their ability to perform their contract," Votaw said Thursday. "We were disappointed and surprised with the suddenness of the announcement without any forewarning."

Can you believe it? Problems are arising from the PGA Tour legal department's fantasy insistence that their "ironclad" contracts will carry the day even as a company is literally going up in smoke!

Steve Elling reports on Ginn pulling out, the PGA Tour's reaction and he talks to Ginn's man, Robert Gidel, who explains the crux of the problem:

"What gets frustrating at times is that people who are not at the epicenter of the financial and economic crisis lose sight of what's happening to everyone. We're all in the same soup.

"Drawing lines in the sand is not going to solve problems, it's going to create problems."

As reader Chris, who sent the Elling story in notes, it would appear that "Commission Finchem & Company have had the hammer for years, the other side of the table has it now." 

Update on 2009-01-30 15:19 by Geoff

** I posted the incorrect link above in referencing Ginn bankruptcies. Here it is.

"I played with so-and-so, and he said four words to us the entire round.'"

The L.A. Daily News is down to five sports writers but they still let Jill Painter file a golf column from time to time, so you can imagine my joy when I got around to my copy last night and read this from new LPGA Tour card holder Anna Rawson, who draws attention for her looks but more importantly, provides interesting fodder with her occasional blog posts at Yahoo and honest assessments like this:

"I was out at Sherwood, and I was disgusted with how the PGA Tour players acted toward fans," Rawson said. "They didn't sign autographs or they'd sign four and walk off. I watched Paula Creamer sign autographs for two hours in Korea.

"Some (PGA) players walked straight past (fans). I couldn't believe it."

And...

Rawson is a model on the side, and if her game continues to flourish, she might be standing for hours signing photographs, autographs and programs, as well as mingling with sponsors at cocktail parties and chatting up pro-am partners more often.

"God, they make so much money (on the PGA Tour). It's disgusting how much more they make than us," said Rawson, who played at USC. "I've heard countless times from people that played in a PGA Tour pro-am and they said, `Wow, you're going to have a conversation? I played with so-and-so, and he said four words to us the entire round."'

"Fujikawa was feted at every turn"

From Doug Ferguson's Sony Open game story, reporting on Zach Johnson's win and Tadd Fujikawa's Sunday struggles:

Fujikawa was feted at every turn, but his hopes faded quickly.

Fans lined the length of the 486-yard opening hole, and a handmade sign hanging from a palm tree behind the green said, “Go Tadd. Bring it Home.” It was signed by the grounds crew at Waialae, who stood and cheered.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to remind field size complainers that we saw a stellar leaderboard, a close competition with 20 or so players having a shot at winning Sunday, and a classic local qualifier-makes-good story (Tadd's redux).

It's not a coincidence that this is an open event with Monday qualifying and a full field of hungry golfers.

So next time we hear how field size is the primary reason for slow play (the next slow play disaster) and that all fields should be reduced in size, perhaps we can consider that the lethargic pace on the PGA Tour is rarely blamed on ridiculous pre-shot routines, confining course setup or long waits on holes where there used to never be waits thanks to recent distance advances.

Open events and large fields are vital to the health of the "product."