The Golf Watch

"The Champions Tour has worked for years on showing the public how it gets it"

During the first three months of the year, one of the tours that commonly gets forgotten is the Champions Tour.  And as Bill Dwyre suggests, that fan friendly approach the 50-and-over Tour implements should be emulated not just by the PGA Tour in this flailing economy, but also by other professional sports organizations.

As in all walks of life, especially sports, some will get it and more won't.

The Champions Tour has worked for years on showing the public how it gets it. There has never been a better time than now to wave that flag.

Tuesday at 7 a.m., in a packed hotel ballroom, 500 people showed up to hear Lee Trevino speak. He is 69 years old, his days of glamour golf on a glamour tour are long over. Still, they hung on every word, giggled at every story.

He symbolizes the years of senior tour players putting accessibility over arrogance. Senior men's golf, while a niche in comparison to the football-basketball-baseball triumvirate, has positioned itself to remain healthy in a time of financial illness.

Ginn terminates sponsorships immediately

It was U.S. Bank earlier in the week, and now Ginn Resorts is cutting off its sponsorship of its two remaining tournaments, the LPGA's Ginn Open and the Champions Tour Ginn Championship.

I think tournament directors could all learn something from Tommy Fonseca of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.  As Brian Allee-Walsh of the Times-Picayune writes, Fonseca has targeted and approached new businesses in the community that haven't been affected as badly by the economy.

The purse size of the Zurich has increased by $100,000 this year. 

"Leaving Baltimore CC would be a blow"

As a native Baltimorean, I naturally have a special appreciation for the courses we have here.  And there is no doubt that most golf architects would describe A.W. Tillinghast's Baltimore Country Club as a gem. 

Nevertheless, the Senior Players Championship, which has a deal to stay at the club through 2010, could be susceptible to the turbulent economy.  The host of the tournament, Constellation Energy, was sold to MidAmerican, and there are some doubts as to whether or not a contract will be renewed.  As Dave Shedloski writes for the October 17 edition of Golf World:

There was plenty to wonder about during the week at Baltimore CC. When the 78-man field wasn't grinding over the tilting, tempestuous A.W. Tillinghast greens, they were gnashing their teeth over the plummeting stock market. Weeks earlier, one stock that had taken a beating was Constellation Energy, the title sponsor, and Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, snapped up the company Sept. 18 for $4.7 billion. What that means for the future of the Senior Players at Baltimore CC was unclear. Constellation Energy is signed on through 2010.

"Right now, everything is status quo," said Mike Stevens, president of the Champions Tour, who assured that senior golf was on solid financial footing for at least 26 events in 2009.

Leaving Baltimore CC would be a blow because the majority of players revere the venue like few others on the schedule. "This is one of the best we play, easily top five," Loren Roberts, the '07 champion, said. "We don't play many golf courses of this pedigree very often. This is really a privilege."

BCC lives up to potential, Johnson salvages season

The Senior Players Championship at Baltimore Country Club was a visually pleasing tournament.  I was on hand at Five Farms following Maryland's own Fred Funk and Jay Haas.  There are a couple of observations I'd like to make:

1. BCC is one of the real hidden gems on the East Coast.  Typically, when outsiders think about top courses in the Maryland area, Congressional CC and Caves Valley come to mind, yet BCC ranks just as high, if not higher in my book.  Typically, television doesn't do justice to the true beauty of a course.  Even though it was only two hours worth of coverage, NBC did a nice job with their visual presentation.

2. There were very few spectators at the tournament. Much of this had to do with the Ravens game against the Colts.  After all, Charm City is first and foremost a football town.  But what needs to be addressed is the scheduling of the event, mainly, it being held several weeks after the PGA Tour's Tour Championship.  When the US Senior Open was held at Caves Valley in July, 2002, the crowds were huge, so timing plays a huge part.

D.A. Weibring ended up ousting Funk by a stroke, winning his first Champions Tour major. You can read the Baltimore Sun story here.

As for the PGA Tour, Zach Johnson proved that he could win outside of Georgia, capturing the Texas Open.  Read the recap here.

Smyth's son hits the jackpot

When you're 55, and your son calls you from across the country at 6:20 in the morning, you worry.  But for Champions Tour player Des Smyth, it was a once in a lifetime call.  From a Golfweek staff article:

The son of Irish golfer Des Smyth hit the jackpot on the Emerald Isle.

Greg Smyth, 24, won nearly $14 million in the Irish National Lottery, the Champions Tour announced Aug. 14.

Smyth, of Baltray, County Louth, is studying for a degree in horticulture.

His father, who is playing in this week’s Jeld-Wen Tradition in Sunriver, Ore., called the news “surreal.”

This year, Smyth is 74th on the Champions Tour money list with $123,132. 

International Cup?

Last year's International closed up shop in February and Tiger Woods' camp wasted no time in taking advantage of the prime date, adding the AT&T National to the schedule.  There's no arguing that Denver has a stellar golf scene, and the Denver Post's Woody Paige proposes a President's Cup-like format for the 50-and-overs called the International Cup...naturally taking place in Colorado.

Golf should come home to Castle Pines next summer for a newly created International Cup — a four-day challenge among a dozen U.S. senior champions and a team of 50-and- older players representing the rest of the world.

The International truly would be a significant international affair again — with rolling hills, tall pines, duck hooks and three-jacks, double bogeys on No. 10 and double eagles on No. 17 and the best chocolate milkshakes in golf.

The U.S. Senior Open at The Broadmoor this week, the Colorado Open last week and the U.S. Amateur Publinx two weeks ago remind us that the Denver area belongs, annually, in big-time golf, on fairways and greens, not O.B.

It's a bold and interesting idea, but if it would somehow pan out, I'm sure the International team--and even the Americans--would want the tournament to altenate between American and International sites.

Strange, Green, Pak headline induction ceremony in St. Augustine

Curtis Strange and Hubert Green were inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame earlier tonight in St. Augustine, Florida.  Strange won consecutive U.S. Open titles and Green captured a U.S. Open title and PGA Championship.  In addition to Strange and Green, Se Ri Pak, at the age of 30, became the youngest player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.  Pak has won five major championships along with 24 victories on the LPGA Tour.  1960 British Open winner Kel Nagle, architect Charles Blair Macdonald, and three-time British Amateur champion Joe Carr were also inducted.  There are now 120 members in the Hall of Fame. 

Roberts can't think of anything sweeter, wins Charles Schwab Cup

Last year, Loren Roberts had the opportunity to win the Charles Schwab Cup, a year-long race for a 1 million dollar bonus at the end of the Champions Tour season.  But Roberts squandered his opportunity by missing a short putt on the final hole, giving the title to Jay Haas.  This year, Roberts didn't make the same mistake, finishing at 11-under-par, five strokes ahead of Haas, and clinched the cup.  "After last year, I can’t think of anything sweeter that would happen to me, to be able to get into the winner’s circle this year," said Roberts.  Jim Thorpe ended up winning the Charles Schwab Championship tournament for the second year in a row.

Hoch's caddy collapses on driving range

On Thursday at the SAS Championship, Scott Hoch's caddy collapsed on the driving range.  Greg Rita, a long time PGA tour caddie, was rushed to a nearby hospital.  According to Edward G. Robinson III of the News & Observer, "Hoch said Rita was treated for 'brain bleeding' and an irregular heartbeat."  Hoch added that Rita was in good spirits on Thursday, but remained in critical condition. 

Babineau: Champions Tour continues to improve

According to Jeff Babineau of golfweek.com, the Champions Tour is in much "healthier shape" now than it was a few years ago.  Babineau writes, "Attendance at events is up; charitable dollars are up; viewership numbers on Golf Channel are up."  Bernhard Langer, Jeff Sluman, and John Cook will make their Champions Tour debuts later this year.