"Get out now, sponsors. The golf brand has been wrecked."

Not to sound like Tim Finchem...but there are so many more elements to golf tournament sponsorship than just Tiger Woods. The LA Times' Dan Neil--an incredible auto reviewer and Pulitzer winner--reinforces the that lack of sponsorship understanding in a point-misser piece suggesting Tiger's phony image means all of pro golf is a charade unworthy of corporate support.

Without Woods, the game trails off and rolls back into the weeds of cultural irrelevance, long weekend tourneys among more or less evenly matched men in more or less equally ugly clothes slapping balls around while the real players get loaded in corporate hospitality tents. There is no heroism in golf without Tiger -- at least the Tiger we thought we knew -- no drama, and scant male pulchritude besides. Unless your business is actual golf balls or clubs (Titleist or Ping or whatever), I'd say your marketing dollars could be best spent elsewhere.

And, of course, as a practical matter, there will be far fewer eyeballs watching golf on TV. Various estimates have the viewing audience sans Tiger dropping by 50%. Who knows if they'll ever come back.

The illusion that professional golf was somehow a sport with a higher calling, a game of honor and ethics played by fundamentally decent men, has been shattered. This isn't about counting strokes you took while nobody's watching. Tiger's trollop-taking is precisely the sort of thing we've come to expect from pro basketball and football players -- and, shamefully, our indifference implies consent. For the most dominant golfer of all time to be so caddish seems to be a signal that lesser golfers transgress in lesser degrees. In any event, the safe harbor of golf's presumed decency has been drained. Meanwhile, now that the tabloid press has had a taste for golfer flesh, I wouldn't be surprised if we have to live through a season of golf-related exposes. All the more reason for marketers to pull up stakes.

Apparently Tag Heuer didn't get the message. Their homepage today:

Finchem Should Do Video Conferences More Often

The scribblers didn't give Tim Finchem the best reviews yesterday on his teleconference performance and I must say his tone during the call was different from what was exhibited in his chats on CNBC, ESPN and The Golf Channel.

Maybe he should talk to the scribes on video? Ty, set that up please. Help the big guy out. It's going to be a long year.

Unfortunately we don't have images to see if he rekindled last year's kidnapping video sensibility, but Finchem did apparently talk to his players again via video and was a bit more candid than he was in talking to us lowly writers.  Sean Martin reports:

The nine-minute video appeared to have been filmed in the locker room at TPC Sawgrass. It was divided into three segments: "Business Update," "2010 Season," and "Tiger's Absence."

Way to weave those current events in!

In Thursday's press conference, Finchem denied reports that the Tour is having trouble securing sponsorship renewals. However, he said in Friday's video that he will travel to fewer events in 2010 as he focuses on securing those sponsorships.

“In 2010, this economy hasn’t gotten any better,” he said. “We have a lot more renewals for 2011. My focus, my priority is going to be the business of the PGA Tour. You may not see me out there as much.”

He sure knows how to spoil a PGA Tour pro's Christmas.

However, he did say 2010 should be a “very, very solid year” for the Tour. “We have a full schedule. We have playing opportunities that are very close to 2009. We will have prize money about the same, maybe a little higher than 2009. Our charity dollars will be up somewhat.”

Actually, it's down $4 million give or take a few dollars..

“I don’t want to misrepresent the facts. Tiger has a strong impact on the PGA Tour, but we can perform well, and perform adequately for our sponsors in his absence,” Finchem said.

“... But in the meantime, we need to do a little more work. Again, as I mentioned earlier, it’s incumbent on all of us in 2010 to work hard, continue that effort we had in 2009, and roll into 2010 with an upbeat attitude.”
Finchem asked players to continue an increased effort to interact with sponsors.

“As you did in 2009, stepping up and committing yourselves to extra effort for sponsors and tournaments, we want to carry that right into 2010,” he said. “... This helped us a lot in this downturn, and we need to do it again in 2010.”

More SNL On Tiger, Tim Finchem**

The opening sketch is brilliant...

Tim Finchem, Geoff Ogilvy among others were hauled into this Woods saga, with a nice Bernie Madoff connection too:

Wanda Sykes also opened her show with a great skit, but because Fox has some weird video player I refused to download. It'll be on YouTube soon, hopefully. If you want to risk downloading their suspicious player, the episode is here.

Update on 2009-12-14 04:21 by Geoff

**The Sykes opening sketch and entire show is now on Hulu:

Will Tiger's Likely Return Event Remain Sponsorless And Other Television Ramifications?

Tod Leonard recently documented the surprising inability of the Century Club and PGA Tour to find a sponsor for the event formerly known as the Buick Invitational.

Since there is a very good chance Tiger Woods will make his next start at the "Century Club of San Diego Invitational," the sponsorship status of the event may tell us just how much or how little sponsors want to be a part of the Woods brand post-accident. After all we're talking about monster ratings for an event that already drew well and while tickets and schedules have been printed, we know the PGA Tour can move quickly to insert a sponsor last-minute, though we could be inside a window that makes it impossible to sign someone for the late January event.

And this is assuming a major corporation wants to be associated with Tiger Woods.

As for the future, Doug Ferguson addressed the idea of ratings and next year's television contract negotiations:

Neal Pilson, former CBS Sports president who runs his own consulting business, did not think it would affect the next deal.

"We're seeing this in the glare of the day, these incredible revelations," Pilson said. "At some point, he'll play golf and he'll move on. At some point, this will become more embarrassing to the media than Tiger."

TV ratings typically double when Woods is contention, and he has begun his season every year since 2006 at Torrey Pines in San Diego, which starts Jan. 28.

"Ratings will be good for golf. Aren't you going to be watching?" Pilson said. "The ratings for Tiger are going to be higher than they might be ordinarily. I don't think there will be any negative fallout for golf. This is a Tiger Woods story. He happens to be a golfer, but he's a worldwide personality."

PGA Tour Issues Statement On Tiger's Statement**

I really have no idea why they issued this, who it is on behalf of, or how this accomplishes anything:

Tiger's statement speaks for itself. We offer our full support to Tiger and his family and will continue to honor and respect his request for privacy in this matter. We will have no further comment on Tiger's statement.

Update on 2009-12-04 17:01 by Geoff

**A PGA Tour friend called to make a fair point: if the tour responded to reporters with a "no comment" they would be viewed as abandoning Tiger, creating a new and unfounded news story. I countered that posting the statement on the website was the mistake.

"THE FIRST 10 YEARS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM"

Okay, it's a slow news week so why not enjoy some perspective-giving stats from Dave Lancer of the PGA Tour. My favorite belongs to Tim Petrovic and his three (!) double eagles:


THE FIRST 10 YEARS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM

The PGA TOUR has just concluded the first 10 years of play in the new millennium and we’ve compiled some notes and statistics from play over that span.

Not to anyone’s surprise, Tiger Woods won the most tournaments (56), but who had the most holes in one or the most double eagles?  Read below to find out that and more.

Most Wins
Tiger Woods                56
Vijay Singh                 26
Phil Mickelson              24
Kenny Perry                11
David Toms                 9
Jim Furyk                    9
Ernie Els                      9
Justin Leonard              8
Retief Goosen               7
Sergio Garcia               7
Mike Weir                     7
Davis Love III               7
K.J. Choi                      7
Adam Scott                  7

Most Top 10s
Tiger Woods                121
Vijay Singh                  118
Phil Mickelson               96
Jim Furyk                     93
Ernie Els                      73
David Toms                  73
Davis Love III               67
Stewart Cink                64
Jerry Kelly                    62
Scott Verplank              60

Holes in One—310
Most by one player—Robert Allenby (6)
Longest—Jay Williamson, 250 yards at #6 Quail Hollow, 2008 Wachovia
Shortest—Mike Heinen, 106 yards, #7 Pebble Beach, 2002 AT&T National Pro-Am

Double Eagles—38
Most by one player—Tim Petrovic (3)

479 Tournaments
169 Different Winners
103 Playoffs
Played in 28 states
Played in nine countries outside the U.S.—Canada, Mexico, England, Scotland, Australia, Spain, Ireland, Puerto Rico and South Africa (Presidents Cup)

Winners came from 18 countries outside the U.S.—South Africa, Australia, Sweden, Paraguay, Fiji, Northern Ireland,  Spain, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, England, Trinidad & Tobago, Ireland, Argentina, Colombia, Scotland

Different International winners—45
Total victories by international players--152
Most individual winners—Australia, 12
Most victories by one country—Australia, 33

Most individual wins by international players:

Vijay Singh                26
Ernie Els                    9
K.J. Choi                    7
Adam Scott                7
Sergio Garcia             7
Mike Weir                  7
Retief Goosen            7
Geoff Ogilvy              6
Stuart Appleby          5
Padraig Harrington     5
Rory Sabbatini           5

Number of players who won majors—22
Players who won more than one major--       

Tiger Woods                12
Padraig Harrington        3
Phil Mickelson               3
Angel Cabrera               2
Retief Goosen               2
Vijay Singh                   2

Number of rookies to win—24
Number who have won again—14

Number of different players in their 20s to win—44
Total victories by players in their 20s—117
Most different players in their 20s to win in one year—13 (2008)
Most victories in one year by 20-somethings—20 (2000)
Most by one player in his 20s—31, Tiger Woods

Number of different players in their 40s to win—39
Total victories by players in their 40s—86
Most different players in their 40s to win in one year—10 (2003)
Most victories in one year by 40-somethings—14 (2003)
Most by one player in his 40s—22, Vijay Singh

Most money won—Tiger Woods, $76,349,910 

“Intent doesn’t factor in for a couple of reasons"

I can tell how passionate you all are about this Doug Barron drug testing story since no one passed along Rex Hoggard's story highlighting the tour's response after some of us called them out for not responding to Barron's claims. (Isn't it special how they chose Golf Channel and GolfChannel.com as their outlet of choice.)

Rich Young, the tour's attorney made what seems like a fair point:

“Intent doesn’t factor in for a couple of reasons,” Young said. “It would be very hard to prove what’s in somebody’s head and why they used a banned substance. Secondly, the rules are clear on this. They know what they are allowed to use. Doug clearly used testosterone even though he knew he wasn’t allowed to.”

Young also addressed concerns the Tour’s punishment of Barron, who played just one Tour event in 2009 and has not made enough in the last three seasons to cover the potential $500,000 fine for his violation, was too harsh when compared to other sports like baseball, which suspended Los Angeles slugger Manny Ramirez for a blatant doping violation for 50 games this season, or one-third of a season.

“When he was told he couldn’t do (testosterone, although Young concedes Barron’s use of beta blockers is a more “complicated” issue), he may not have liked the decision, but for him to ignore the decision is a flat out intent to violate the rules,” he said. “He may not have done it to become Barry Bonds, but he was told what the rules were and chose to break them.”