The world of professional golf in the post-World War II era wasn’t the lucrative experience that it has become today. In fact, there really wasn’t a world of golf. Faraway places such as the British Isles, South Africa and Australia had a handful of regional events. There was no European Tour. The American Tour was a circuit of 30-36 tournaments sponsored by local chambers of commerce. The principal contestants drove from site to site, in Corpus Christi one week, then on to New Orleans, followed by Miami, then Charlotte and on to Greensboro.
In 1945, the historic season when Byron Nelson won 11 tourneys in a row, the tour hosted 35 events. Nelson played in all of them. There were no weeks off to recharge the golfing batteries although there were gaps in the schedule during busy times at East Coast golf courses. Purses were small, endorsement money was smaller and most name professionals were affiliated with established country clubs that paid them to represent them on tour. Nelson, a Texan, was the head pro at Hershey Country Club in Pennsylvania. It was chocolate money that allowed Nelson to venture out on tour for two-thirds of the year, week in and week out.
Nelson pocketed an amazing $63,000 (for that time) while winning 18 tournaments and recording seven runner-up finishes. He was trying to accumulate as much money as he could so that he could retire from the tour as soon as financially possible and buy himself a cattle ranch in West Texas. Without a doubt, he was on a burnout track. He knew he couldn’t drive all over the country, play in pro-ams and exhibitions, compete in 35 tour events and spend the rest of his time as a club professional putting on club events and giving lessons to the super rich.
Some 20 years later, Arnold Palmer was hitting a similar proverbial wall. Palmer was usually playing in 28 tourneys annually and he made a commitment to sponsors that if he didn’t attend their tournament one year, he would definitely be there the next. It was a gesture that definitely enhanced his ever-popular image, but it made it difficult to stay competitively sound week after week. He also competed in Australia, Spain, France and Latin America.
As Palmer was beginning to see his skills diminish, Jack Nicklaus was taking over center stage. Nicklaus made the determination that the major championships were career defining and he arranged his yearly schedule to set himself up for optimum success in those four events. Nicklaus would enter approximately 18 tournaments on the PGA Tour annually, play in a handful of events that held his interest such as the Australian Open and the World Cup, take the week off prior to the majors, and the end result was 18 major championships as well as recognition as the greatest golfer of all time. His schedule allowed him to be better prepared.
Tiger Woods followed a similar path once he became an established professional, playing in just over the tour minimum of 15 events, taking big-money appearance fees to play in Europe and the Far East and continuously returning to sites where he had experienced past successes such as Bay Hill, the Memorial, the WGC at Akron, and Torrey Pines. Woods was able to excel with this sort of a schedule as he spent large amounts of his non-competitive time practicing and tweaking his swing. His career, thus far, has been similar to Nicklaus in that he accumulated 14 major titles. Yet there are similarities to the career of Arnold Palmer in that Woods has not been able to sustain his high level of play as he got into his late 30s.
All of which brings us to recent issues in the scheduling life of Jordan Spieth. The 22-year-old Texan had a break out 2015 campaign, winning the Masters and the United States Open as well as the PGA Tour’s Fed Ex Cup. Spieth is the No. 1 golfer in the world, is a hot commodity and is the momentary leader of the new breed that includes Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and Rickie Fowler. The fun thing about this current group of golfing stars is that they seem to like one another and seem to like to compete against one another. They’ve been very good for the game.
Spieth won his first event of the new year just 20 days ago when he ran away with the Tournament of Champions at Kapalua in Hawaii. He finished a whopping eight strokes ahead of Patrick Reed. From there, Spieth flew to Abu Dhabi on the Arabian Peninsula to play in a big-money European Tour event. Spieth came in fifth place, Rory McIlory finished third while Rickie Fowler took home the big prize as he finished one stroke ahead of runner-up Thomas Pieters of Belgium. Jordan is currently even farther away from Texas as he is teeing it up at an Asian Tour event in Singapore this weekend. True, he could have avoided all those frequent flier miles and stayed in the continental United States to compete in Palm Desert last week and San Diego this week. Of course, now that Jordan is in the upper stratosphere of professional golf, foreign tours and big-money sponsors are more than happy to throw seven-figure appearance fees at a golfer such as Spieth (appearance fees are strictly forbidden on the American PGA Tour). Plus, being a young guy who doesn’t yet have a myriad of responsibilities, I think Jordan enjoys traveling and seeing the world.
Yet earlier this week Spieth acknowledged to the press that he was “kind of beat up mentally.” He added that he “was not 100 percent right now.” Yet in the same breath he announced the remainder of his spring schedule that includes Pebble Beach, Los Angeles, Doral, Innisbrook, the Match Play in Austin, Houston and finally the Masters. When he does tee it up at Augusta National, it will be his third tournament in a row.
At age 22, Jordan Spieth is suddenly facing the reality of being the world’s No. 1 golfer. True, fans of the game want to see Jordan play but there are more great tournaments worldwide than there are weeks in the year. He’s young, very young, to be in this situation, and there will be mistakes made along the way. Team Tiger made similar scheduling mistakes early on in his career. Yet as success driven as Spieth obviously seems to be, one cannot play world class golf week in and week out without some degree of rest and recharge.
There is no doubt that Jordan is “kind of beat up mentally.” He will have to tread that fine line between success, the quest to grab the big money while you can, and the need to avoid burnout. Going from Hawaii to Abu Dhabi to Singapore and finally to Pebble Beach is fun when you’re 22 years old. I just hope he gets some quality advice and schedules in an intelligent way.
