The 2019 PGA TOUR    

The 2019 season starts on October 4. Seriously. The 2018 season ended on September 23. So… the Ryder Cup was the break between seasons. I’m glad our Winter Break during the school year was better than that.

Next year the PGA TOUR season ends on August 25. The reasoning is that they want to end their season before the football season begins. OK… I get it… but, then why start it up again in October?

Next year, the season ends on August 25 with the Tour Championship at East Lake CC. Nothing new… just ending a month earlier than usual.

Obviously, the PGA TOUR needs sponsors for their tournaments. However, the season should make sense. It feels like a bunch of random tournaments interspersed with the four Majors. And now they’ve moved one of the Majors from August to May… to make more room for the season-ending FedEx Cup.

The FedEx Cup. Is that supposed to be the Super Bowl of golf? Are you excited about it?

I always like to start at the beginning. Let’s take a look at the roots of the PGA TOUR. The first year of the TOUR was 1929 – it was a bunch of pros from country clubs in Northern cities who had the time to get away during the winter and play golf for money. They started the season in California and Arizona for the Western Swing, then headed to Florida for the Eastern Swing. All of these years later it still follows that same format beginning in January. That makes sense – then and now. So when the rest of the country warms-up, the TOUR makes its swing Up North.

It was really because of the popularity of Arnold Palmer and television that the TOUR became a cash cow and broke away in the 60s from the PGA of America. It wasn’t just club pros playing against each other, it was a bunch of tournament ready golfers focused on playing and not running a golf shop.

By the time Tiger Woods hit the scene, the PGA TOUR was big business. And Tiger drove it into the stratosphere as the most recognized athlete on the planet. If you played on the TOUR during the Tiger era, you probably made a lot of money. Commissioner Tim Finchem directed the TOUR during those years and is probably esteemed by most of the TOUR players from his era.

This is the dilemma of any business – short-term or long-term success. Obviously, you need enough short-term success to keep going, or there is no long term. Now you get into the big picture of goals and values. We all know that the PGA TOUR donates a lot of money to charity. Good for them! But is the model of the TOUR for the short term or the long term?

I love golf. But, I don’t watch much golf on TV. I watch all four of the Majors. The Majors are what make professional golf special. And the PGA TOUR does not run the Majors. Yet, it is the biggest beneficiary of the Majors. The Majors are really what cause the excitement about watching the best players in the world. I said world. Yes, the Majors are world championships.

Does the PGA TOUR have to be a world tour? Remember when Greg Norman tried to build a world tour? Is that needed? Aren’t the Majors enough?

So, is the PGA TOUR just golf tournaments filling space around the Majors?

Instead of moving the PGA Championship to May, I would have moved it to September and had it the season ending tournament. Years ago, the PGA Championship was a match-play tournament. A season ending match-play tournament would be the perfect ending to the golf season. And, it could be played anywhere in the country. The North is still warm enough, and the South has cooled off enough to host a great tournament.

Then, the PGA TOUR should be done until January. All sports need an offseason. Greed is not attractive. The offseason should be Q-School and goofy events like the Tiger-Phil Showdown. But stop regular TOUR events until January.

I’d kick off the season with the Phoenix Open. It’s turned into a circus and would be a great way to jump-start the new year. The TOUR shouldn’t be like the Phoenix Open every week, but it should have variety. I’d like to see courses for bombers, and courses for shot-makers.

Just because the PGA TOUR is making a lot of money now, doesn’t mean it will last. As I said, I love golf and want to see it thrive. Recreational golf needs to relax and be more fun. The PGA TOUR needs to have a clear focus and realize that it can’t artificially be as important as the Majors. Did I mention the USGA? I’ll save that for another column.