Welcome To The Tiger Tour

Tiger Woods now has his own tournament, the AT&T National, to be played July 2 through 8 at the famous Congressional Country Club. That’s not news. However what may be news is that the golf world has pulled an end run around its own rule about appearance fees. How’s that you ask? Well, for his duties, which is basically showing up at said tournament, the Tiger Woods Foundation will receive a multi-million charitable donation no matter what Tiger does on the golf course.

Technically, that may not be an appearance fee, but when the money ends up in Tiger Wood’s control what else would you call it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that the Tiger Woods Foundation does wonderful work, but that’s not the point. The fact is that Tiger’s presence in a tournament can make it or break it from a TV rating standpoint, and without TV ratings sponsors are hard to find, and without sponsors tournaments disappear.

So, what’s next? Will Phil Mickelson and his Foundation host the next FBR Open in Scottsdale? How about Vijay Singh and his Foundation hosting the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Hawaii, or Ernie Els, or Jesper Parnevik? Okay, maybe not Jesper. Granted, it may only be the top two or three players in the world that make enough difference to warrant such treatment, or their maybe there’s only one, but how many Tournaments would plop down a sizable chartable donation if it would guarantee that Tiger Woods would play in their tournament?

Consider how few tournaments the top players actually play in these days. Now consider how many spots on their dance card are already filled with four majors, plus the Players. Now add to that the World Golf Championships, the Tour Championship. Then comes the money games like the million bucks Tiger and others get for showing up in Dubai and Asia. Now don’t forget that Tiger plays in two Buick events, plus the AT&T National, just like Phil plays in the American Express sponsored tournaments. Then there are Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer’s tournaments, which most attend. Now, factor in that the big name players don’t like to play more than three weeks in row and what have you got?

The answer is very little room for any other tournaments.

So, what’s the harm? Perhaps there is none, or perhaps Tiger, Phil, Ernie and the boys are becoming their own tour and in doing so relegating the regular PGA Tour to non superstar status and that would worry me if I were ranked number 75 in the world. Because with relegation comes less exposure followed by less money and less opportunity. How many tournaments already have limited exposure because they are only seen on the Golf Channel?

Again, so what? What does Tiger and all of the others owe to golf? Actually, everything; without golf Tiger is selling real estate, Phil is on the Poker Tour and Ernie is a potato farmer in South Africa. Politicians and CEOs get in trouble when they think they are the smartest guys in the room. Athletes get in trouble when they start thinking that they are bigger than the game.

Last year the PGA Tour touted that they had raised a billion bucks for charity and that’s admirable. But what happens if this new order takes hold? Sure, Tiger’s Foundation will get its money and so will Phil’s, but what about the dozens of other charities that are left out in the cold? Who got their share? Tiger, Phil and Tim Finchem should remember that golf did not invent the big buck charity golf tournament; charity invented the big buck golf tournament.

Sometimes when the banquet table is too big you forget who bought the groceries.