GolfWeb - Editor's Column

"It all starts at Doral."

By Stu Schneider, Editor, GolfWeb
Photographs by Keiichi Sato

[Corey Pavin]

Where's Corey?...

[John Daly]

...Where's John?

For the last few years, there has been much talk and speculation about the support PGA Tour players have been offering to early-season/West Coast events like the Phoenix Open, Buick Invitational (San Diego), and Los Angeles Open.

It used to be oh, so simple. The PGA Tour season used to end with the World Series of Golf in August. Then the players went fishing, worked on their whittling skills, or played the harmonica for three or four months. A few played in a pro-am here or there. But there was no Skins Game, no Anderson World Consulting Championship. Then things got started in January, and players used events like the Crosby and Phoenix Open to get the rust off their games, leading up to the Masters, where things really got started. Now, people like Phil Mickelson are using the West Coast events to make their entire years. Mickelson has already won more than $600,000 so far this year, which used to be a good year's earnings on the PGA Tour.

But now, while the rest of the Tour works its way up and down the California coast and through the southwest, players like Greg Norman and Fred Couples prefer, for whatever their reasons, to be elsewhere. Sometimes they're playing in other events around the world, for which they sometimes are highly compensated just for showing up. Sometimes they're just at home on the couch watching the NBA games. I can recall reading that great book by Frank Beard, Pro, where he talked about how antsy he'd get watching tour events during his off weeks, just thinking about all the cash he's missing out on by sitting out....

For many years, there have been stories in the media about the relative strengths of the fields of the West Coast events. Some have said that it is the gentlemen of the press, so to speak, who, seeking something to write about early in the year, have been responsible for spreading this particular theory. But what about the theory itself? Is it true?

Just for fun, here's a breakdown of the first five PGA Tour events (not counting the Mercedes, only open to tournament winners), with the number of players from the top 20 of the 1995 money list who have played in each event:

Nortel	9
Bob Hope	9
Phoenix	12
Pebble Beach	15
Buick	16

Let's look at three other big draws who weren't in the top 20: Mickelson, Fred Couples, and John Daly. Mickelson, who grew up in San Diego and lives in Phoenix, has played in four of the five, skipping only the Bob Hope. Couples has played in the Hope and the Buick. Daly was supposed to play in the Nortel but withdrew, and hasn't been seen in the U.S. since. (He's now in Australia, where he just won a bunch of money in a Skins Game, beating, among others, the LPGA's Laura Davies.)

Both Norman and Pavin have missed all five. Pavin, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended UCLA, is scheduled to play in the Nissan Open.

The press may be the ones spreading the gospel, but many point to one player--Greg Norman--as Patient Zero in the search for the start of this epidemic. You can bet that a number of West Coast tournament officials haven't forgotten the time Norman was strolling down the 18th fairway at the Doral-Ryder Open, looked right into CBS' cameras, and said, "It all starts at Doral." Ouch. A number of people say that's when the press first started its West Coast crusade.

So, first things first. Just what does Greg Norman have against the Phoenix Opens of the world? Absolutely nothing, insists his manager, Frank Williams. "It's nothing personal against the West Coast. For him, it [the Tour] does start at Doral," Williams said. "He has to fulfill his commitments in Australia, which virtually stops him from playing on the West Coast. I think [the remark] has been taken out of context. He's not demeaning the West Coast events at all, that's bull----. I can't see why they're insulted.

"If someone chooses to take that as an insult," he continued, "they're an idiot. He plays the Mercedes, goes to Australia for two or three weeks, which he's just gotten back from. I can't see why they're actually insulted."

Williams, somewhat sympathetic to the problem, puts part of the blame on the end-of-the-year events. "The silly season has gotten too long," he said. "It's the fault of the silly season. Couples, for instance, played all those events in the silly season and then needs a break." Not that he's advocating any outside interference on his player's schedule. "All these guys are free businesspeople and choose to play wherever they can play," he said. "They can't play everywhere."

Does the absence of the top players affect the West Coast tournaments? Well, yes, but it apparently is not as much of a problem as some are making it out to be.

"We did about the same (at the gate) as we did last year, even though our field was stronger overall," said Ed Heorodt, tournament director of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic for the past 16 years. Heorodt also blames the off-season events for keeping top players away. For instance, he cites the case of Corey Pavin, who made $1 million in one event. While Pavin normally takes off November and December to spend with his family, last year he was out on the road. As a result, he skipped most of the tour's January events. "We can understand that," he said. "I don't blame him."

Heorodt said that some players, like Pavin, have valid excuses. "Take Nick Price. Why doesn't he come here? Well, that's his month off to go back home and be with the kids. But he said once the kids are in school, he'll make the West Coast swing."

"We don't look at it as a problem," said Judy McDermott, tournament director for the Nortel Open. "We have always had a great leaderboard on Sunday. The press makes a bigger deal out of it than we do, really. We think it would be great if Norman came. But we just live with it. As long as our title sponsor is happy and everyone is happy in the pro-am. There's nothing we can do about it. The tour has to decide what they're going to do."

Though they say it's a media-invented issue, when West Coast tournament directors get together, aside from exchanging the usual funny courtesy car anecdotes and pro-am horror stories, the subject does come up. "It's always a discussion item, honestly," said McDermott. All the West Coast tournament directors will gather later this month in LaCosta for a little get-together, and when they do, someone will invariably bring it up. "It always is a topic of discussion."

But she insists there are many reasons why some players skip some events. "You look at the Hope and the AT&T, those events are pro-ams," she said. "Some golfers don't even like to play in those. We play on two golf courses. Some players don't like Starr Pass, so that could be a detriment to us too."

Heorodt has heard similar complaints about his tournament, also a pro-am format. "On the other hand, a lot of players say they like it because of the contact that they make," he said.

Individual players like Couples or, especially, Daly, can make a difference, and did at the Nortel. Daly was scheduled to play, showed up, but then withdrew because of an injury. "He would have made a big difference in our gate," McDermott admitted. "Our gate was down about 10 percent from last year."

Well, for right now, the PGA Tour is going to do...nothing. They have developed a PR campaign based on "How the West was Won," to try and entice some players to rethink their West Coast schedules. And there are rumors of one sponsor trying to start a program that rewards players monetarily for playing in the early season tournaments, but nothing is official yet.

"I'd like to see them go after some guys and say that in five years, they have to play once or twice out of the five."

The PGA Tour is also taking the stance that the facts don't support the thesis. "It's related to Freddie Couples having a really good off-season and saying that he's tired and going to take some time off," said John Morris, the Tour's vice president of communications. "And we're still paying for that off-hand remark. It's the same thing with Pavin. He's entitled to take some time off. He will wind up playing in 24 events, just like he always does. The facts don't support this supposed problem we're having with the West Coast events.

"Guys will take off as much time in July and August because they don't like the heat. There are other guys that don't like the cool weather at Pebble Beach so they won't play there. Players determine their own schedules, but that hasn't changed. Nothing's changed since 1970 in terms of the number of events guys are playing."

Morris also said a quirk in the calendar will result in a slight schedule change next year. Because there are five weekends in January, the finals of the Anderson tournament will be played the first weekend, with the Mercedes tournament to follow. The Bob Hope will not be between Tucson and Phoenix as it was this year. Whether this will make a difference is anyone's guess.

DON'T LOOK NOW, but we may not have heard the last of Ben Wright. Yes, Ben Wright. The NBC News program Dateline NBC is reportedly working on a piece on the controversy, and has already interviewed Valerie Helmbreck, the reporter for the Wilmington (Del.) Herald who wrote the original story with Wright's foot-in-mouth quotes. So far, Wright has not talked to anyone in the media since his suspension by CBS Sports.

"WANTING TO GO OUT WITH A BANG" could be the reason for outgoing U.S. Golf Association President Reg Murphy's strange remarks during the USGA's annual meeting last month. In his speech, before a stunned audience of USGA members and officials, Murphy called for the USGA to allow spike marks to be repaired in a players' line and an end to the Monday 18-hole playoffs at USGA events. From the reactions of USGA officials and quotes from incoming president Judy Bell, it's safe to assume you still won't be able to fix spike marks in your line--at least legally, that is--for quite a while. And the same goes for 18-hole playoffs as well. They're here to stay.

NOW THAT NBC has the Ryder Cup and U.S. Open locked up for a while, look for the peacock network to try and muscle its way into Augusta National and snatch the Masters away from CBS. Augusta and CBS only operate on year-to-year agreements, and in the past, the club has made some noises about going to another network. If you factor in the Gary McCord/Ben Wright debacles, plus NBC's aggressiveness in pursuing the Olympics (not to mention the amount of money they forked over) it wouldn't be surprising if there were some phone calls between New York and Augusta sometime soon.

Thursday, February 15, 1996

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