I’m sitting here watching the NFL Playoffs and I catch a commercial or two for a golf tournament. A golf tournament? Are you kidding? They say this is the first tournament of 2012. Well, I guess it is. It’s just earlier than I expected. For cryin’ out loud, the last tournament of 2011 just wrapped up a month ago! But now, along comes the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
Someone help me because I don’t know – Has golf always been a year round sport on the professional level? Wouldn’t that cause fans to become a bit “golfed out?” I know it would for me. I mean, the off-season is one month long? Sorry, but that’s just not long enough. As much as I love football, I need the off-season. It gives me the break I need so I don’t get tired of a sport I love. If it was going on for eleven out of the twelve months of the year, I’d probably be bored of it.
Am I wrong, or would golf benefit from a shorter season? Do people get golfed out? I really don’t follow the tour, and that’s one of the reasons why. The season’s just too long. And I would have to imagine many of these tournaments are somewhat “inconsequential.” And if a tournament doesn’t really matter, then that diminishes the interest.
I think the PGA Tour as a whole could benefit from a shorter, more focused season. If there was some type of a playoff system, then I’m sure every individual tournament could mean much more to both the fans, as well as the players themselves.
Further, if the season were to be shorter and a playoff system instituted, then due to the importance of each tournament, players would be less apt to skip any, thus creating a better chance at a star-studded field every weekend. Could you imagine Tom Brady just sitting out two or three games because they don’t matter? Yeah, I know that some NFL teams will sit a couple of players during the last week of the season, but that’s 1 game in 16.
Let’s look at the PGA Tour numbers. Last year there were 50 tour stops. 50! Now, there were four weekends on which two tournaments were played. So, since you can’t be in two places at once, that leaves 46 potential tournaments to play. Now, of the 445 players who played in a PGA Tournament last year, only 26 of them played in 30 or more tournaments, with the most being 35. So, even the player who played most often still skipped 11 tournaments! Doesn’t that just get on your nerves – that players pick and choose when they want to play? That’s like Aaron Rodgers sitting himself for four games, or Kobe Bryant sitting himself for twenty. What if Albert Pujols didn’t play in over 40 games because they just weren’t important enough? Are you serious?! It’s ridiculous, but it happens week in and week out during the PGA season.
How about if that was eliminated? How could it be you ask? Make every tournament matter. Trim the fat and streamline the schedule. Make it so more players play in more tournaments. Make them count toward an end of season playoff for a real championship.
I’ve got several ideas to get this done. Besides this one, I’ve previously discussed a road to an actual PGA Championship as well as a championship itself. Someday I’ll figure out how to get these combined into one revolutionary idea. And someday, maybe the right people will take it into consideration. Hey, after all, I’m just trying to help!
Swing ’til you’re happy!
Love the idea. I can even get my wife to watch golf now and then, but only when the “big names” are on, and when I say “big names”, there are only a handful that count to her. I think Golf “suffers” from being too much of a global sport. You have the PGA and the European tour. We could force a shorter more focused season and find a way to “force” players to play a majority of tournaments as you note, but we would most likely end up losing a ton of European players, and really, who wants to watch an all US PGA season? Not I. Too many players from around the world I would miss. Still, the season could be shortened considerably without too many ill effects, IMHO. Of course those struggling pro-golfers who need those tournaments would, I’m sure, disagree.
Agreed – its ridiculous that there is not off season. Golf is in trouble with too many tourneys as it is – they need to retract the number of tourneys have a clear season and get the excitement back in the season. Having a tournament every weekend doesn’t really benefit TV ratings, the sponsors or the fans.
Not only is the off season only a month long it is over the Christmas and new year period which should be holiday for everyone. I suppose for golfers they can take time of when ever they really want but obviously this would have an effect on form.
The only problem is that most guys cannot play every week or even every 3 weeks. It is too much of a mental grind. Therefore you need a long season to allow for all the guys to get the number of starts they need to succeed.
The way to make is shorter is for the viewers to just not pay attentions to about 1/3 of the events, which is pretty much what happens.