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Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Loyalty just another unplayable lie in golf
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Shanks for the memories, with apology to Bob Hope, a man who knew well such errant shots. And to Tim Finchem, who dumped the last shovel of dirt on the grave of the old Atlanta/Georgia-Pacific/BellSouth/AT&T Golf Classic. Sneer, if you choose, but in the city that’s the South’s capital of the game, where the PGA Tour has chosen to play the annual climactic event of its season, there can be no room for a tournament that has thrived and played a major charitable hand in this region for more than 40 years?
Have they forgotten? This is where the Tour came to inaugurate its Tournament Players Championship (1974; Jack Nicklaus won it). This is where it came to play its Tour Championship, now expanded into the FedEx Cup finale, though it does seem the Cup isn’t having an easy time replacing earnings as the popular thermometer of the Tour. With the write-off of the AT&T Classic, can the departure of the Tour Championship be far behind? At such a time of the year, it is still trying to find a comfort zone between the closing baseball races and the kickoff of college and NFL seasons.
The Classic politely stood aside for the Players, then again for the U.S. Open, played at Atlanta Athletic Club in 1976, then obediently moved from Atlanta Country Club to TPC Sugarloaf in 1997. No question, they were running out of parking space in the Cobb County location. Nonetheless, it was Sugarloaf or nothing, for Finchem was mending fences with Greg Norman, who’d sowed the first seed of a series of world championships, and was shot down before he could get organized. Norman got the design contract for Sugarloaf and the plump fee that went with it. After the friendly ACC, Sugarloaf was one tough course to play, and for spectators to walk, and parking was no more convenient than at the original home course. And Norman is no fan of the course with his name stamped on it, he has said when he’s asked.
But the commissioner is in an autocratic situation, and what he is doing is rearranging some of the tour furniture. He has unloaded The International, unique in its Stableford scoring system, and replaced it with the AT&T National in Washington, Tiger Woods hosting. (Could you blame him?) Now with the AT&T Pro-Am at Pebble Beach and AT&T Classic, the phone company had a full house. You-know-who had to give. Tiger never really pitched in at Sugarloaf with any great effort. He played the BellSouth there once, won it and never came back. Bad timing, the week before the Masters, bad grass, bad weather and all that irritates a tour player. Happens nearly everywhere, to every tournament, but this was one with an “X” across its chest.
So, shanks for the memories. It began without a parent, just Atlanta Classic, until Georgia-Pacific pitched in. It did develop some international flavor to go with its Australian designer. A New Zealander, Bob Charles, won the first one and a check for $23,000, which would have placed him about 40th this year. A Japanese golfer, Ryuji Imada, won the last and just under a million bucks. A rather astonished Paul Stankowski, who had won on the Nationwide Tour the week before, was the last champion at ACC, in a playoff, and suddenly realizing that he’d just won a place in the Masters asked in his muddled state, “How do you get to Augusta?”
Another Nicklaus had his moment among the gods at Sugarloaf. In a weekend of wretched weather, Gary, No. 3 son, played his way into a tie with Phil Mickelson in 2000. The playoff lasted one hole. On Monday morning, Nicklaus found a bunker, Mickelson found the green, won the hole and the championship. Gary never even came close again, anywhere.
So the inevitable has come to pass. The game moves forward in another direction. The Seniors (Champions) have been here before and moved on. Should this amalgamation come off, hopefully their stay won’t be cut short this time.
