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DEL.ICIO.US“NASCARizing” golf won’t fly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the PGA Tour this week paid NASCAR the ultimate compliment. The PGA Tour wants to graft the wildly successful Chase for the Nextel Cup onto the links of this great nation, the aim being for the FedEx Cup, to be instituted in 2007, to do for men’s golf what the Chase has done for stock cars — namely, redefine the whole season.
Sorry. Won’t work.
Here’s why: Sponsors.
Sponsors control NASCAR. Golfers control golf. We Atlantans have just witnessed a vivid case study. Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second and fourth in Sunday’s Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 despite not being Chase-eligible. Phil Mickelson blew off this week’s Tour Championship at East Lake simply because he didn’t feel like playing.
The big golfers — Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh — pick and choose. A NASCAR driver runs every weekend. Jeff Gordon can’t skip a race just because he feels a little piqued. He can’t because the folks at DuPont, the company bankrolling his car, want their logo displayed before 100,000 spectators plus another hefty TV audience every time the green flag waves. Estimates put the cost for a primary sponsorship in a Nextel Cup team at upwards of $15 million. When you spend that kind of money, you expect the maximum return on your outlay.
Golfers are different. Golfers don’t have spotters and pit crews and technical designers. Golfers don’t travel in massive haulers and custom-built motor homes. Nike pays Tiger Woods to wear its clothes and use its clubs, but Nike doesn’t tell Tiger Woods where and when to play. He tells Nike where he’s headed, and company reps show up with boxes of new shirts.
The FedEx Cup is a nice idea — nice, if borrowed — in theory. “It will definitely have an intensifying effect on the last couple of months,” Stuart Appleby said Friday. “It will produce better quality fields ? [and] a lot of excitement.”
Appleby said something else: “You’re basically herding cattle toward a smaller window.”
Actually, cattle tend to travel in groups and be docile about it. Golfers are more like lone wolves. NASCAR got huge because the France family mapped a plan and everybody bought into it. The PGA Tour got bigger because Tiger Woods started winning everything he entered. And, not incidentally, he didn’t enter everything.
The FedEx Cup is designed to make the Big Names play more, but will a series of end-of-season tournaments capped by a fabricated “championship” alter the schedules of guys who adjust their calendars to prepare for the four majors above all else? Consider: Ted Purdy has played in 34 Tour events this season; Woods and Mickelson have played in 21 apiece.
As has been noted, NASCAR is different from other sports. It has its Big Event — the Daytona 500 — at the start, and then everything else is geared toward the Chase. The Chase works because Gordon and Earnhardt wanted badly to be part of it but missed the cut, not because their attentions were elsewhere.
“Do I fully understand [the FedEx Cup]? No,” Ben Crane said. “But the commissioner [Tim Finchem] has a history of doing great things for the Tour.”
Still, Tim Finchem doesn’t control golf. Tiger Woods does. And Woods, when asked Friday if he’d consider playing five or 10 more events a year to accommodate the FedEx Cup, looked at the questioner as if he were nuts. “I don’t know if my body could hold up,” Woods said. “I’ve never played in more than 21 events.”
And there’s your answer right there. Gentlemen of golf, find yourselves a different gimmick.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Golf, Mark Bradley
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By doc
November 4, 2005 11:54 PM | Link to this
finchem will need to increase competition and professionals interest by reducing purses.since he cant do that he has come up with this other stuff of fluff and illusion.
it didnt take long to figure out 30 golfers dont add up to a lot of competition but is a nice casual way to watch some exhibition golf. it is silly season upgraded. there is no climax to golf as the grand slam events are the essence of golf with 120 golfers going after a significant prize, not what is going on at east lake this week.
By Bryan G.
November 6, 2005 12:10 PM | Link to this
This was the dumbest idea I ever heard of, period. Just insane.