Wednesday, July 12, 2000
Woods likely to skip Pa. Tour
stop
By Mike Kern
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA — Two decades ago, 40-year-old
Jack Nicklaus was still the PGA Tour's marquee attraction. The
best golfer in history won here in 1978 in the IVB Classic and
returned the following summer to defend his title. Two years later,
the tournament, which ran for 15 seasons at Whitemarsh Valley
Country Club, was history.
Now, the sport revolves around a 24-year-old
who just won the U.S. Open by 15 shots. In September, when the
tour returns to the Philadelphia area for the first time since
then for the SEI Pennsylvania Classic at Paoli's Waynesborough
Country Club, there's a good chance Tiger Woods might be home
in Florida working on his stock options.
The event - to be held Sept. 14 to 17 -
would go on. And maybe even have a rave debut. It's simply that
Tiger thrusts everything he graces off the charts. It's a dilemma.
But a good one, according to PGA commissioner Tim Finchem, who
flew in from the tour's Florida headquarters for Tuesday's mediafest.
“The bad news is, (Woods) drives the
television ratings, he drives the public interest and he drives
the ticket sales, when he plays,” Finchem said. “The
good news is, he's driving them off of a base that's going up
(because of his presence).
“When I became commissioner 1/8in 19943/8,
if Greg Norman and Fred Couples weren't in the event, everyone
was disappointed, even though they didn't move the people like
Tiger. Since that time, the base of what's happened with our TV
ratings, our revenue generation, our charitable giving and ticket
sales has climbed across the board. So we're very, very successful
in weeks when Tiger isn't there. We had 85,000 people in Hartford
on Sunday 1/8two weeks ago3/8, we had 110,000 at Phoenix (in January).
The sport has got legs now.
“Having said that, it's understandable
that when you've got the best player in the world, by a margin
like Jack Nicklaus was, that people would rather see him play.
It's more exciting with him. It's easy to say fans are disappointed
if he doesn't show up. Either way, I think they enjoy seeing the
quality of play.”
Which, of course, also seems to go up when
Tiger's in town. And like Nicklaus before him, he can't play every
week. Otherwise, he'd have to build a new house just to hold all
those trophies.
“He's only going to play 21, 22 weeks,
about half the tournaments,” Finchem said. “The good
news about his schedule is, he moves it around. I think the golf
courses will appeal to him. Whether he plays in the first year,
or the second or third, I don't know. But he'll be looking hard
at the state of Pennsylvania as we go forward.”
Next year, the tourney will move 5 hours
west to Ligonier's Laurel Valley Country Club, which hosted the
1966 PGA Championship. The rotation continues in 2002 and `03.
Latrobe native Arnold Palmer was instrumental in getting the tour
back on his home turf. There's always hope that he could persuade
Tiger, his Florida neighbor, to do him a favor.
“Arnold's the unofficial host, the
ambassador, if you will,” Finchem said. “It will have
an impact on some players, because they hold him in such high
esteem. If we determine that a field is uniquely weak, we go to
all the players and encourage their cooperation. But we don't
pick this one or that one.
“We don't like to get in a position
of favoring one week or another. All of our tournaments are part
of this. There's no sense in worrying about 1/8where Tiger will
play3/8. I'd rather have it this way, with a great star that's
bringing people to the sport, both to participate and watch in
record numbers, than the 1/8alternative3/8.
“If you watched the NBA the last four
or five years, if Michael Jordan wasn't playing, well, people
would rather watch him. But during that period of time he lifted
the entire league. I see the same phenomenon happening with Tiger.”
He's got to play somewhere. On the way home
from his Atlantic City honeymoon, Nicklaus stopped to play at
Pine Valley in South Jersey. Tiger was a history major. Every
reason helps.
(c) 2000, Philadelphia Daily
News.
Visit Philadelphia Online, the World Wide Web site of the Philadelphia
Daily News, at http://www.philly.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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