I don”t watch a whole lot of weekend professional golf on television. I do make sure to allot time to watch the majors and special events such as the Ryder Cup, but when it comes to a quiet Sunday afternoon and golf, I”d rather be out on the links myself rather than watch the Texas Open or see if Mark Wilson can build upon his Fed Ex Cup points lead.
However, there are exceptions to this rule and last Sunday was one of those. I really enjoy watching the PGA Tour”s annual event that visits Harbour Town in coastal South Carolina. Designed by Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus in 1969, Harbour Town seems like the best that Dye and Nicklaus could offer with its strategic bunkering, clever greens and memorable holes. Located on Hilton Head Island, the PGA Tour has been going to Harbour Town since its opening in 1969 when Arnold Palmer won the inaugural event.
During the past 42 years, the tournament has held up even with all the changes and innovations to the game and its equipment. It also has rewarded some of the game”s finest ball strikers with past champions including Hale Irwin, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Greg Norman, Nick Price, Payne Stewart and five-time winner Davis Love III.
Yet it was a comment made by one of the commentators this past Sunday that had the greatest amount of impact on my viewing. It was mentioned that with the conclusion of the tourney at Harbour Town, the PGA Tour”s Fed Ex Cup series was exactly as the midway point. A total of 18 tournaments have been played on tour and there were 18 more weeks of events until the Fed Ex Cup playoffs commence at The Barclays in late August outside New York City at Plainfield Country Club.
While I am very much aware that time flies, I had to acknowledge that while the PGA Tour has hosted 18 tournaments, including a major championship and two World Golf Championship events, there is no real distinct flavor or direction as to what has been going on in the world of professional golf in 2011.
Two-time winner Mark Wilson remains atop the Fed Ex Cup standings because of his early season successes at Hawaii and Phoenix. There”s not a real big television ratings jump when Mark Wilson tees it up as he has a total of four wins during his 14-year PGA Tour career and he has only gotten into the field at three major championships in that same amount of time.
While Luke Donald and Phil Mickelson are closing in on Wilson”s big early season lead, others in the top 10 in Fed Ex Cup points include Martin Laird, Gary Woodland, Nick Watney, Brett Snedecker, who won at Harbour Town last weekend, Aaron Baddeley, Matt Kuchar and Bubba Watson.
In what is obviously becoming the Year of the Journeyman, 17 different golfers have won the first 18 events. Phil Mickelson, who won the Shell Houston Open in early April, is the only one of those 17 winners who had a major title on his golfing resume. Five of this year”s champions have never won before on the PGA Tour, and even the most avid of golf fans would have a hard time telling you any sort of biographical information about Bob Hope winner Jhonatthan Vegas, Pebble Beach champ D.A. Points, Puerto Rican winner Johnson Wagner, and Texas Open winner Brandon Steele. I know the promotional commercials like to state that “These guys are good!” but I would think a lot of people are also wondering “Who are these guys?”
During the years of its existence, the Harbour Town tournament such corporate giants as the Sean Pines Resort, MCI, WorldCom, and Verizon Wireless have sponsored the tournament. However, in 2011, the tournament was without a title sponsor. The Heritage Foundation and local businesses came up with one-time money of $7 million to fund the $5.7 million prize fund as well as buy the required advertising time on national television.
The directors of the tournament are hard at work trying to line up a big-name business sponsor for 2012, and local South Carolina political figures were on site at Hilton Head last week to promote the continuation of the Harbour Town tournament. According to its 2009 tournament figures, the Heritage Foundation was able to donate $1.3 million to local charities throughout the South that year from tournament profits.
However, if I”m a Forbes 500 executive, I”d have some real concerns about plunking down by $4-5 million to sponsor a PGA Tour event, especially on that fails to generate all that strong a field. I”d be hard-pressed to think of the last time Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods teed it up at Harbour Town. Historically, the tournament is played either right after or two weeks after the Masters, and a number of big-name professionals have a tendency to take time off and skip the April schedule of tourneys.
Perhaps that viewpoint is the tone that the fat cats of the PGA Tour can take because they are rich, famous and don”t necessarily need to partake in a mid-level $5.7 million tournament. In comparison, once the Masters was completed, European Tour stars such as Rory McIlroy, Martin Kaymer, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel jetted to Kuala Lampur on the other side of the world to play in the Malaysian Open. It”s no more prestigious an event than Harbour Town, but the leaderboard with McIlroy finishing tied for third was a good jolt for the Malaysian Open.
The Year of the Journeyman continues, now at the midpoint of the Fed Ex Cup season. And yet, in light of the economy and in light of the lack of big-name stars playing in the B-level events on the PGA Tour, the question remains whether there will be some 40 or more tourneys in future years, or will longtime, loyal tour events like Harbour Town go the way of the B.C. Open, the Greater Milwaukee Open and others? Arnie and Jack and Hale supported Harbour Town in its formative years. It”s too bad that Phil and Tiger and the other stars of today don”t.
