PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida, 2 November 2005 — For almost 50 years, the US golf season has been defined by four major championships that start in April with the Masters and end in August with the PGA Championship.
What the US PGA Tour wants is a more exciting end to the season.
Tour commissioner Tim Finchem is pulling together the final pieces of a radical shift in the schedule to feature a shorter season and a points race that intensifies after the majors. The plan is for three blockbuster events to qualify for the Tour Championship, with perhaps a $10 million payoff to the winner.
Multiple sources involved in the discussion, all speaking on condition of anonymity because the changes have not been announced, say the three tournaments will be the Barclays Classic in New York, the Deutsche Bank Championship outside Boston, and the Western Open in Chicago.
Still undecided is a title sponsor for the Western Open, with Chrysler in negotiations over the weekend.
Finchem will give his “State of the Tour” on Wednesday at the Tour Championship, although he might only be able to provide an outline of the proposed changes.
“I’m not quite sure what I’m going to say,” Finchem said in an interview. “We’ve got so many things going on. Given where we are, on the brink of going to TV (negotiations), I don’t want to mislead anyone. But I want to give folks a broad sense of what we’re looking at.”
A PGA Tour source said Finchem might be in position to announce The Players Championship moving from the end of March to the beginning of May, which would give US golf a major event every month from April to August.
The changes are designed to put some sizzle into the end of the year, when US TV ratings plummet as golf struggles to compete against the NFL.
Finchem believes golf can hold its own in September when the NFL is just getting started, and would fare much better than in early November when the Tour Championship typically is held. He was inspired by higher ratings in the last two months at the Presidents Cup, which came down to the final match, and the American Express Championship, where Tiger Woods beat John Daly in a playoff.
“Good tournaments can compete and perform very nicely,” Finchem said. “And the Tour Championship doesn’t do that bad, but it’s too far removed.
