A look at some suggestions from the owner of one of Ireland's most popular golf courses.
Editors note:
On Tuesday Karl MacGinty from the Irish Independent ran this story on how the Irish Open needed help, even going as far as saying that the Irish Open needed a government bailout (really what's more important bailing out the banks or bailing out the Irish Open?). The story paints a dire picture of the classic event that has been played since 1927. The European Tour has already indicated that the tournament had to stand on it's own and frankly with the economic times being the way it is, the future of this old dame looks in serious trouble.
In a phone conversation with an old friend, Pat Ruddy, who owns the European Club one of the most popular courses in Ireland, we talked about the future of the tournament. Ruddy is a regular contributor of the Sunday Irish Tribune and wrote a story about this problem last May. He was kind enough to update it for all of our GolfObserver readers.
Sal Johnson - Golfobserver.Com
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Pat Ruddy with some suggestions for the Irish Open
As the Irish Open bumps along from crisis to crisis, with its very existence seemingly in doubt, one hopes that a suggested saving of €1-million ($1,285,698) might help.All the talk is of the need to raise more money. Hit the government for a bigger input...... an unlikely happening in the present economic climate..... and seek patriots amongst the business community who will be happy to contribute heavily for little more than a spot in the pre-championship pro-am. Go on bended knee to the European Tour !
Nobody, it seems, is taking a more sane stance and assessing the actual worth of the event. Nobody seems willing to ask the hard questions of the European Tour regarding the absence of so many top players. There seems to be little quantification of the value for money.
In fact, this year's type of field was worth no more than €1.5-million ($1,928,548) in prize-money rather than the €2.5-million ($3,214,247) paid.
A listing of the twenty "national open championships" on this year's European Tour (chart on the bottom right) shows that exactly half of them pay €1.5-million or less in their prize-funds. Why the same product should cost so much more when it comes to Ireland is impossible to fathom. A full €1-million is the overspend on prize-money alone.
Pride may stand between Ireland and reality. But the reality is that the Irish Open is in the second division by vote of the players who stayed away in droves and who are likely to stay away in droves even if a further €1-million is added to the prize-fund rather than subtracted from it.
Only four of the World's Top-50 players were at Adare Manor this year. Almost half of Europe's Top-20 stayed away. Only Padraig Harrington and Paul Lawrie represented the winners, recent or ancient, of golf's major titles. The product was weak and second class.
Missing from the field were European Tour stars Sergio Garcia (a past winner), Justin Rose, Luke Donald, Ian Poulter, Paul Casey, Nick Dougherty, Miguel Jimenez, Jose Olazabal, Thomas Bjorn (a past winner), Thomas Levet, Henrik Stenson, Niclas Fasth, Soren Hansen and Peter Hedblom ... to name but a few! Overseas stars were totally absent unlike previous years when appearance money attracted names like Tom Watson, Ben Crenshaw and Hubert Green and everyone got a thrill in what were essentially simpler days before saturation television coverage of the game.
This year, only for the fact that Lee Westwood and Irishmen Padraig Harrington, Paul McGinley, Darren Clarke and their Irish colleagues supported their own event it would have been a fiasco.
This is nothing new. Sergio Garcia hasn't played in the Irish Open since 2000; Justin Rose hasn't played since 2002; Luke Donald has been absent since 2004; and Ian Poulter skipped 2005, 2007 and 2008.
This is to blame nobody. Fact of the matter is that there are too many tournaments for the players to support. The European Tour has over fifty events in the year and knows it cannot produce a full field for them all, no more than any of the other tours can do, but likes to get paid premium prices for a sub-premium advertising product.
The European Tour continues to play with smoke and mirrors and talk of Ryder Cup heroics in order to bolster the prize-fund. It is doing what it always does, what it is chartered to do, by raising as much money as it can. Whether the product is a wise investment, or a productive investment, for the sponsors and whether the Ryder Cup players actually show-up or not are amongst questions seldom aired.
This is the way of professional golf. It has been like this always. The history of the game is littered with forgotten sponsors who thought that they could buy a lasting place in the sun. In fact, when a better offer arises elsewhere the various Tours always move along and only the majors survive.
Test your knowledge
Photo: © Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images18th hole at Adare Manor, site of the 2008 Irish Open Meanwhile, what is the advertising gain for a venue from the promotion of a tournament? Look at the list of twenty open championships on this year's European Tour and name the courses on which they are played. A prize for anyone who can name 50% of them!
| ||
| Purse | Event | Winner |
|---|---|---|
| 1. €5,335,867 | British Open | Padraig Harrington |
| 2. €4,000,000 | French Open | Pablo Larrazabal |
| 3. €3,764,887 | Scottish Open | Graeme McDowell |
| 4. €2,490,680 | Irish Open | Richard Finch |
| 5. €2,258,932 | Welsh Open | Scott Strange |
| 6. €2,011,982 | Spanish Open | Peter Lawrie |
| 7. €1,713,022 | Qatar Masters | Adam Scott |
| 8.€1,707,641 | Italian Open | Hennie Otto |
| 9. €1,700,703 | Dubai Classic | Tiger Woods |
| 10. €1,793,300 | Dutch Open | Darren Clarke |
| 11. €1,541,157 | Hong Kong Open | Miguel Jimenez |
| 12. €1,446,407 | Asian Open | Darren Clarke |
| 13. €1,387,562 | China Open | Damian McGrane |
| 14. €1,347,504 | Abu Dhabi C'ship | Martin Kaymer |
| 15. €1,319,253 | Malaysian Open | Arjun Atwal |
| 16. €1,300,000 | Austrian Open | Jeev Milkha Singh |
| 17. €1,259,345 | Portuguese Open | Gregory Bourdy |
| 18. € 991,600 | South African Open | James Kingston |
| 19. € 838,630 | Indonesia Open | Felipe Aguilar |
| 20. € 767,989 | New Zealand Open | Richard Finch |
Meantime, many things have changed in Europe. For example, the modern rush of venues seeking to host tournaments has increased. In particular venues with something more than golf to sell. Like hotel bedrooms or houses. The rush is so intense that the matter of a facility fee has gone out the window to be replaced with a facility contribution.
It was common practice for a big event to pay a decent fee to the host venue to compensate for lost revenues, to contribute towards staff overtime and to help put the course back together again after it had been trampled for days by the galleries. Now, in a magnificent double-whammy the tournaments have by-passed that cost and imposed a charge instead on the venues for the right to be host! Talk about golf venues shooting themselves in the foot.
Sponsors have been injured even more deeply. Especially those who spend more-and-more money in the hope that the top players will show up. In fact, a study of the past shows that a bigger prize-fund guarantees nothing other than increased risk. With a tournament virtually every week of the year, and the top players needing to divide their time between various tours, it is inevitable that most events will have relatively weak fields. Added prize-money will not overcome that problem as the players cannot be everywhere.
Which raises the question of appearance fees without which the average tournament cannot hope to attract big names. Appearance fees are a fact of life these days. But tournaments can shop for only a few players as everyone will want appearance money once it becomes available. Professional sport is a deadly morass for those who venture into it as promoters or sponsors and only the toughest will survive and only a few of those will make a gain.
The gain is advertising plain and simple. Professional golf is in the advertising business despite the fact that some of the players don't seem to realise this when they come to town and shoot from the lip about the unfairness of the golf course and unsuitability of the date and weather. They should be paid to stay away.
