Cashing In On Sports
Changing The Course
By Guy Junker

Don’t be surprised if you see the 84 Lumber Classic moved off the September calendar to a more prestigious summer weekend sometime soon. Perhaps in time for the 2007 season when many winds of change could blow through the PGA. The field has grown more impressive every year at the tournament held at the Mystic Rock course at Nemacolin Woodlands. And only the absence of Tiger Woods kept it from resembling a major last month when 200,000 fans attended. But a lot of the smaller PGA tour stops can’t boast the same and therein lies the problem.

The money is so ridiculous at the big events that the top players in the world can be very choosy about which tournaments to participate in, yet still make a lot of cash. That leaves the smaller events to struggle for stars, attendance and television coverage. And it’s left PGA bigwigs with a lot of ideas on ways to improve the situation.

First of all, they have discussed moving the Players Championship from March to May. Right now it’s just a tune up for the Masters even though it often has the best field of the season. Holding it in May would make it like a fifth major, an idea highly endorsed by Dennis Clark, the Director of Golf at Nemacolin Woodlands.

“May would be great. The other majors hit in April, June, July and August. It would give you a major event each month for five straight months and the weather would be better too. I’m all in favor of moving it.”

Another scheduling change being discussed is to have the regular season end in September instead of November, moving up the Tour Championship by a couple of months. That might give golf a little more weight in the battle against football and the baseball postseason.

While Vijay Singh was defending his 84 Lumber Classic title last month he said, “They want to come up with some sort of finale which every other sport has but golf. The Tour Championship is supposed to be our final event, but it doesn’t play like the World Series or the playoffs.”

If this happens, the smaller, late fall tournaments would then serve as the start to the new season, making them more interesting than the afterthought they are now.

Perhaps the most intriguing idea is how the players would arrive at the Tour Championship. There has been chatter that, instead of being ranked according to earnings, a points-system would be put in place. It’s worked to help generate interest - as well as controversy - in NASCAR’s chase for the Nextel Cup. And the PGA has noticed.

Players would get points for appearing in a variety of events, as well as how they finish, and the thought is that it could convince some big name guys to attend some of the smaller tour stops.

Or if that fails, it would at least give some of the lower players a better chance to contend simply by participating in a lot of events. But it could also backfire and keep some of golf’s biggest stars from participating in the Tour Championship. It’s a complicated issue.

You might think the guys in the middle of the pack would want a points-system. Not so fast.

“I kind of like the money rankings,” said Heath Slocum, who has been ranked as low as 141st this year and as high as 225th. “I’d be open to a points system but frankly a tournament is a tournament and I think the money has worked fine.”

Then again, in a points-system, a guy like Slocum could quietly earn a million dollars in a year without winning a tournament.

Most of these changes would have to be approved by the PGA’s major sponsors, and they’ve been reluctant to comment yet. Most of the major sponsorship deals run through next year, thus the magic 2007 target date.

In a lot of ways golf is more popular than ever, but scheduling and ratings changes could keep it more consistently popular through the course of the entire season.

As Singh said, “They are trying to make changes for TV and the public. I guess you’ll just have to wait until next year to find out.”

Guy Junker co-hosts the “Junker & Crow Show” weekdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on ESPN Radio 1250.