John Huggan

A new beginning... or the beginning of the end?

Monday, October 6, 2008 7:41 am (Eastern)

By John Huggan

Huggan looks at the European's announcement of it's 2009 schedule and the Race to Dubai and how it will have ramifications on the PGA Tour.

Turnberry, Scotland -- The view, as always, was lovely and almost endlessly distracting. But looking out from the Turnberry Hotel across the Firth of Clyde to the Isle of Arran and the great rock that is Ailsa Craig it was still possible, if one listened carefully, to make out a strange noise. As George O’Grady of the European Tour and David Spencer of Leisurecorp outlined their plans for the upcoming “Race to Dubai” that will climax with the multi-multi-million dollar “Dubai World Championship” next November, even the hard of hearing could discern the distant knocking of Tim Finchem’s knees.

Photo: © Andrew Redington/Getty Images David Spencer, CEO of Leisurecorp, and George O'Grady, Chief Executive of The European Tour, have formed a great partnership with the launch of The Race To Dubai.

Never mind the present economic crisis, problems for the PGA Tour continue to mount. Having given up what he saw as a losing battle with the media and ratings juggernaut that is the NFL and virtually surrendered two months of the calendar year when he came up with the nonsense that is the Fed-Ex Cup (or ‘Finchem’s Folly” as some like to call it), the PGA Tour’s biggest cheese has surely watched with growing trepidation at the plan devised by the European Tour and its Arab partners, one with the potential to do much long-term damage to his organisation’s current pre-eminence.

The interest in European Tour membership already expressed by the likes of Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Vijay Singh, Camilo Villegas, Robert Allenby and Geoff Ogilvy is likely to be only the trickle before the deluge, the beginning of a much larger exodus of players keen to escape the sameness and tedium of typical PGA Tour courses and take part in Leisurecorp’s bid for global supremacy. When money talks – or in this case shouts - professionals listen; even very rich professionals.

Photo: © Stan Badz/PGA Tour For the first real time the PGA Tour and Tim Finchem have a real challenge of another tour competing for the services of players like Phil Mickelson who is thinking of also joining the European Tour (would have membership in both tours).

Starting in China on November 6, the inaugural Race for Dubai will take in 53 events, 25 countries and five continents. Even in what O’Grady labelled “a transition season,” those are pretty spectacular numbers, especially when one adds on the opportunity to win an eight-figure sum in the final event. Even Tiger’s notoriously fussy nose perks up when those sorts of sums are mentioned. And that, of course, is Finchem’s biggest nightmare. With the world’s best golfer already heavily involved with Dubai and its rulers both on off the course, a future that sees Woods spending more and more of his time not playing on the PGA Tour is evolving into a distinct possibility. Certainly, it would not take much more than a couple of seven-figure appearance fees to make European Tour membership a mere formality for the world’s best golfer. Just last week, despite competing pressures from the rank-and-file to up the minimum requirement for membership from 11 events to at least 13 and from the sponsors and star names looking to maintain the status quo, the tour’s tournament committee compromised and ratified a plan to ask for at least 12 appearances from each of its members. Two of the 12 also have to be within the continent of Europe. (Already the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond, played in the week preceding the Open Championship, must be licking its lips at the prospect of its already strong field being boosted by those star names keen to pick off that last requirement in one two-week trip).

Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Images Last year at Dubai Tiger Woods said that he wasn't interested in joining the European Tour but will all of the developments of the "Race to Dubai" help change his mind and create another headache for Tim Finchem?

Given that seven of that dozen – the four majors and the three WGCs - are automatics for every leading player, the actual commitment is minimal and lucrative, given that rule-breaking appearance fees on the European Tour are routinely paid by sponsors and ignored by those who actually make the rules. Last year, by way of example, Woods played ten qualifying events, with his trip to Dubai just one that hardly qualified as “uncompensated.”

O’Grady, of course, was at pains not to paint the announcement of his 2009 schedule as the first stage of all-out war with his counterpart across the Atlantic. But there were plenty of little hints that the Wentworth-based executive was enjoying the chance to put one over on the man who, not so long ago, decided arbitrarily – and arrogantly - that so-called “World” Golf Championships should all be played within the borders of the United States.

“We look at the world together,” claimed the European Tour chief executive in reference to the PGA Tour. “Whenever I go to the Players Championship I learn something. And imitation, as everyone knows, is the sincerest form of flattery. Having said that, we are not getting into bed with any rocky banks!

“We’re not mad to have World Golf Championships. Our focus is on making the Race to Dubai as attractive as possible.

“And, while there has already been a lot of talk, no leading player has yet joined us. We would welcome them all, of course, as well as any opportunity to look at combinations with the PGA Tour across the globe.”

Spencer, who has employed Finchem’s close chum Greg Norman to design the “Earth” course that will host the Dubai World Championship, also had his oblique say on this ever-changing relationship with the suits of Ponte Vedra.

“Our aim has simply been to create an event bigger than any one player,” said the Australian. “We actually support the US Tour. They are not in our sights, but hopefully we have raised the bar for professional golf. I know Tim Finchem is very impressed with what we have already done. We have captured the imagination of the players as well as the audience.”

Still, all is not perfect, even in a brave new world over-flowing with oil. Counter-balancing such blatant rhetoric is the fact that as many as 11 events on the Race to Dubai schedule currently have ‘TBA’ where the name of the host course should go. Although O’Grady was quick to state that, “98 percent of the tour is rock solid,” Keith Waters, director of international policy, conceded that “challenges lie ahead.” Only last week, in fact, the BMW Asian Open won this year by Darren Clarke disappeared from the schedule.

There is also the nagging thought that the European Tour – perhaps unavoidably in the present economic climate – is putting an awful lot of eggs into one Arab basket. For any business to rely so heavily on any one client has always been a strategy fraught with risk. But, in O’Grady’s defence, this was a deal to which he could hardly say no. Not only is Leisurecorp directly sponsoring what used to be called the Order of Merit and the season-ending blockbuster, money is also being provided to prop up less fortunate events like the South African Open, and the European Open.

“We will be giving $40m over the next five years,” revealed Spencer. “That’s a good little treasure chest.”

Anyway, a closer look at what will be the European Tour’s last 14-month schedule (from 2010 the season will begin in January with the South African Open) reveals that two events, the HSBC Championship and the Hong Kong Open will each appear twice; that there are five new events in the Czech Open, the English Open, the Canal Plus Open, the Volvo World Match Play Championship and the Dubai World Championship; and that the New Zealand Open (now on the Nationwide Tour), the aforementioned BMW Asian Open and the Volvo Masters are no more.

Hey, you never know, maybe those last two events could be resurrected and pop up on the PGA Tour, soon to be the world’s second most important circuit. There’s that knocking noise again...

A look at the European Tour's 2009 schedule.

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