As it sets up on paper, the majors this year are both slammin' and grand.
The game's feature foursome this year will be held on courses that are both scenic and epic, with three sites situated along seashores, historic seaside dunes or a Great Lake big enough to be considered an ocean. Fans surely could drown in the possibilities.
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| Venerable St. Andrews is the favorite Open venue for many -- but perhaps nobody more than Tiger Woods. (Getty Images) |
"There is a certain guy that is probably licking his chops," Ernie Els said.
Tiger Woods didn't win a major in 2009 and it isn't certain whether he will enter any Grand Slam events in 2010. But assuming he does, and proves that his game hasn't suffered from the layoff and psychological hangover from his months-long scandal, these could be sites to behold.
After all, history is often a pretty solid precursor.
Woods has won half of his 14 major titles at Augusta National, Pebble Beach and St. Andrews, three of his favorite courses. The last time the U.S. Open was staged at Pebble, in 2000, Woods won by a record 15 strokes, then won the British Open by eight at St. Andrews a month later.
"That is far and away the most sensational thing that's happened in golf, to me," Tom Watson said last summer.
Four weeks after that, Woods claimed the PGA Championship at Valhalla in a playoff, then completed the wraparound Grand Slam the following April at the Masters.
His 2000 season was, by acclamation, the greatest season in modern golf -- and three of the major venues this season are identical. The fourth, the PGA, will be held at Whistling Straits, where Woods finished T24 behind winner Vijay Singh in 2004.
For those reasons as much as any, it seems darned improbable, if not impossible, that Woods will sit on the sideline for long. In his prime at age 34, these are crucial at-bats in his race to catch Jack Nicklaus, who has 18 professional majors in his quiver.
"If Tiger is going to pass my record, I think this is a big year for him in that regard," Nicklaus said this month. "If he doesn't play this year, then obviously the chore will be a little tougher."
Indeed, Nicklaus characterized the majors at Pebble and St. Andrews as veritable gimmes for Woods. He has won the past two British Opens at the Old Course and has a pair of professional wins at Pebble Beach.
The next time the British and U.S. opens will likely be staged at the same two venues in the same season, Woods will be 44, well past the midpoint of his career.
"This year, with where the majors are -- Augusta, Pebble Beach and St. Andrews -- he basically owns all three of those places," Nicklaus said.
If he balks at playing in 2010, then somebody stands to land a hefty inheritance.
In the first installment of our PGA Tour preview series, we examined the principle cast members of the 2010 plotline, followed by the salient script particulars for the upcoming season. This week, with the script and the actors already detailed, we'll examine the stages they'll be standing on.
Bangkok dangerous
Maybe the LPGA is onto something. If sponsors won't come to you, go to the sponsors. Guys, start swimming.
Already, the PGA Tour will stage 2010 events in Mexico, Puerto Rico and Shanghai, and according to reports, another offshore stop is in the works for Malaysia. If you count the tournament in Miami at Doral, that's five tournaments where the primary language isn't English.
OK, lo siento, so we were partly joking about Miami. At any rate, given that commissioner Tim Finchem had a lengthy Orient sojourn in the offseason to conduct a meet and greet with folks abroad, Asia in particular could fast become an interesting battleground. In fact, it already is.
The European Tour already is firmly entrenched in Asia, all the way into Australia and India. The existing secondary pro tours in that region have been in a battle for supremacy for two years, vulturing sponsors and cross-sanctioning events from other circuits. That's only going to continue if the Olympic impact proves even partially true -- that emerging Asian countries will funnel money into the game. At this point, Asia is one of the few places where courses are being built these days.
For decades, the knock on top American players is that they won't travel abroad to play -- go ahead, find a Yank toiling on the lucrative European Tour. In the near future, for PGA Tour members, that parochial mindset is going to change.
The money in Asia is getting impressive, which is partly why the major tours are taking notice. American Anthony Kang was third on the Asian Tour money list last year with $411,062, and former Thai paratrooper Thongchai Jaidee topped the tour in earnings with an impressive $981,931.
"They can sell it quite well over there," Els said. "Golf is booming over there, believe me. China is probably the next frontier for them. They can probably do three or four tournaments in China. So, yes, the European has been doing it for 25, 30 years. They might be forced into it, too, the U.S. tour."
Let the front-office battles begin.
"I think it will be a good fight for them," Els said of the tours. "See who's got the best players, the best brand, and who can give them the most as a sponsor. Who sells the best?"
Mark your calendars in dread, white & blue
Maybe Woods is smarter than we gave him credit for. He needs to sleep in this time of year, because the back end of the 2010 playlist looks brutally busy.
Despite giving serious consideration to moving around an off-week date to more comfortably allow the U.S. players to prepare for the Ryder Cup on Oct. 1-3, the top Americans will be expected to play seven times in a nine-week stretch, culminating with the Ryder Cup, which for players is probably the most stressful week in golf outside of the U.S. Open.
After finishing play in the FedEx Cup finale in Atlanta on Sept. 26 -- where a $10 million bonus will be decided -- players will be hopping a plane in Atlanta and jetting straightaway to Wales for the matches, where their snooze-inducing captain, Corey Pavin, will have them in a REM state in no time.
The guys will be more fried than a basket of U.K. fish-'n'-chips.
Build a course, get a ranking?
Admittedly, we all have been occasionally confounded by national golf-course rankings, which some periodicals have elevated to a not-so-high art form that serves mostly to generate conversation and controversy.
So, what happens when there aren't enough tracks for Golf Digest or Golf Magazine to list in a "10 best new courses" category? Don't laugh. We're not at all sure there will be 10 new designs opening this year in the States. Domestic course construction, already slowing appreciably from pre-2000 levels, was slammed again by the banking collapse, the general disposable-income implosion and the housing slump, especially since many layouts are built purely to help spur real-estate sales. Even the trio of courses Woods signed on to design are either overdue or effectively in development limbo.
Welcome to the tour, suckers
With great fanfare, a new event in West Virginia was added to the 2010 calendar, at the Greenbrier, a pedigreed resort where plenty of the game's greats have played in the past.
Even the governor and tour commissioner turned up for the press conference. Now there's the issue of getting players to enter.
The inaugural Greenbrier Classic is set for July 29-Aug. 1, the final date before the WGC Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone. However, the latter marks the first of the aforementioned nine-week stretch in which many top players will tee it up seven times, ending with the Ryder Cup. So, in effect, the Greenbrier's calendar slot is the equivalent of freshman hazing.
Other pit stops, pitfalls and pratfalls
In another head-scratcher, the relocated Turning Stone Resort Championship was moved from the Fall Series into the same week as the Bridgestone, rendering it a so-called "opposite event" and ensuring that no top-30 players will enter.
In other site-related tweaks, the event formerly hosted by Woods, the AT&T National, moves for two years from Congressional Country Club in Washington, D.C., to Aronimik outside Philadelphia, a city that is long overdue for a big-league golf tournament. The Barclays, the first stop in the FedEx Cup series, moves back to stately and classic Ridgewood Country Club in suburban New Jersey, where it was well-received by players after hosting the event in 1998.
The Valero Texas Open moves from the oft-ridiculed La Cantera to a new course, TPC San Antonio. Thus, we'll let you decide whether this is good news or not, but in one midsummer stretch, TPC courses will host seven tour events in an 11-week stretch, not including the U.S. Open, which isn't run by the PGA Tour. One of those sites, two-year-old TPC Las Colinas, is in the midst of possible bankruptcy proceedings.
The final curtain?
The tentacles of the economy continue to dominate any tour-relation notion not beginning with the word Tiger. As it stands, and rest assured that the suits in Ponte Vedra Beach are pitching the merits of their product like never before, the contracts of events sponsored by Coca-Cola, CA, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Puerto Rico tourism, Turning Stone Resort, Wyndham Hotels and Viking all expire after 2010. Verizon, the sponsor at Hilton Head, has already stated it will not renew after its deal expires in April.
As it stands, tour stops at Palm Springs, Memphis and Reno will be staged this year without title sponsors. Not to possibly underestimate the impact of Woods' absence, but the exact date of his return isn't nearly as paramount as re-signing or locating replacements for the expiring titleholders.
We're not economists, but as with current real estate values, now seems a good time for sponsors to jump on board, while they have some leverage on price points because there's doubt about when Woods will next play.
After all, as a famous man once said, "If you see a bandwagon, it's too late."
