"Somebody said the clubs are the ones on steroids. That was pretty funny."

After Tiger Woods spoke on the need for drug testing, voila! Tim Finchem issued a clarification on his bizarre stance while speaking to the press in Canada:

COMMISSIONER TIMOTHY W. FINCHEM: Well, my position has been so misconstrued. I've said several factors that we evaluate on a regular basis that could lead us to take a number of steps. But I don't want to get into, in a press conference forum, answering specific questions on this subject. And the reason is that I've done that a couple of times earlier in the year and pieces of my answer get reported that seem to reflect a sense of what our policies are. And this is a complex issue that has to do with testing protocols and things that would be tested. We've done, as I said last week, a lot of research on what other sports are doing. We will, later this fall, make a comprehensive statement about what we are recommending to our board be done in the area of substance, substance abuse and performance enhancing substances. I'd ask you to be patient, because I would much rather put in your hands a comprehensive statement so that you can report within the context of that statement and understand exactly what our thinking is, rather than answer piecemeal questions about it that get either reported in part or out of context.

Q. I know it's a complex issue in some ways, but whether or not you have testing is fairly simple. Are you open to that?

COMMISSIONER TIMOTHY W. FINCHEM: It's not simple. So if you just bear with us and we will be providing a comprehensive statement in just a few weeks for you. And then you'll have an opportunity to answer any questions you want.

As Thomas Bonk reports in the Thursday L.A. Times, this appears to be conformation that testing is on the horizon. 

Ed Moorhouse, who is also the tour's co-chief operating officer, said drug testing remains on the table when the policy board meets Nov. 13-14 at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

"If we thought testing was needed, we would probably go ahead," Moorhouse said. "Will [the drug testing topic] go away? That's not for us to say. I would very well expect we'll continue to have a discussion on that issue when we meet."

He also offers this from Ben Crenshaw:

Ben Crenshaw, another board member and player from the Champions Tour, said he wouldn't be surprised if a policy was instituted that listed banned substances, followed by some sort of testing program. "There may be something on the horizon," he said.

Crenshaw said he is a strong supporter of Finchem's position.

"There's no policy, and if there's any drug usage on the radar screen, he hasn't seen any indication of it. We haven't either," he said. "Those of us who have played forever, we don't know what in the world that performance-enhancing drugs would do for a golfer.

"Somebody said the clubs are the ones on steroids. That was pretty funny."

"Golf is a power game"

The September 4 issue of SI opens with the traditional "Scorecard" piece, this time with Alan Shipnuck writing about the emergence of golf as a "power game." He then lays out the perks headaches coming with the power shift.

Golf is a power game, a point driven home by a recent confluence of events in Ohio that rocked a sport that has always been resistant to change. In Springfield on Aug. 22, the Ohio Golf Association held a tournament in which competitors were compelled to use identical balls that had been engineered to fly roughly 10% shorter than the average rock. (dead-ball golf is what headline writers at The Columbus Dispatch called the attempt to put the toothpaste back into the tube.) Then, in Akron last week, Tiger Woods took time out from winning his fourth straight tournament, the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, to stump for the implementation of performance-enhancing drug testing in professional golf. It was a public rebuke to PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, who has staked out a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil position on steroids.

And after considering the recent events and Tiger's feelings on the matter, Shipnuck reminds us that Woods pushed for a pro-active stance on driver testing. And of course not mentioned here but equally as important to the topic at hand, Woods has advocated changing the spin rate of balls.

On the OGA event, Shipnuck writes:

It was an open-minded band of volunteers that showed up when the OGA staged its one-ball tournament, bringing to life an idea that for years has been kicked around by everyone from Jack Nicklaus to recently retired Masters chairman Hootie Johnson, who grew weary of annually having to tear up his golf course to keep pace with advances in equipment. (Augusta National has grown more than 500 yards, to 7,445, since Woods's overpowering victory in 1997.) OGA president Hugh E. Wall III said that maintaining the relevance of older, shorter courses in his jurisdiction was the primary motivation for testing the restricted-flight ball. "[We have] great courses, but many don't have the resources or the real estate to expand to 7,400 yards," Wall told GolfWorld. "[We want] our member clubs to see there may be another option ... other than bulldozers."

Thus every competitor at Windy Knoll Golf Club received a dozen balls with an OGA logo and a side stamp of CHAMPIONS 08222306 (the name of the tournament and its dates). All other details about the ball were supposed to be top secret, but by tournament's end word had leaked that it was manufactured by Volvik, an obscure Korean company. (A U.S. manufacturer examined the OGA ball for SI and reports that it was a three-piece, dual-core construction with a Surlyn cover and 446 dimples.) These instant collector's items left most players pining for their regular ball. Derek Carney of Dublin, Ohio, typified the conflicted attitude: He agreed that something has to be done to protect older courses but said that he didn't like the OGA ball "because it doesn't benefit me."

Oddly, such a selfish attitude in other sports would be laughed, but in golf, such an attitude is seen differently. Shipnuck explains:

Such grumbling merely previews the howls of protest that would accompany any efforts to roll back the ball on the PGA Tour, where players have spent years using launch monitors and computers to find optimal combinations of balls, shafts and clubheads. The irony of the OGA event is that it is PGA Tour pros who threaten to make a mockery of classic courses. Yet bifurcation is a dirty word in golf. Differing rules for pros and amateurs would destroy the business model of the $4 billion equipment industry, which is built on stars like Woods being paid handsomely to peddle their gear to weekend hackers.

Golf is still grappling with the ramifications of the boom-boom ethos that has redefined the game, but the almighty buck remains the sport's most influential force. When it comes to reigning in the power game, steroid testing will be an easier sell than dead-ball golf. Especially when Woods is the salesman.

"We have reached a level where we have real brand strength based on our players"

The scribbler's actually asked some tough questions of Commissioner Tim Finchem Wednesday, ranging from doubts about a change in venue for one of the new Fry's events (read here where it was looking like it would be in San Jose), to fairly relentless questioning about drug testing.

So let's get to what's on everyone's mind, an update on the Quest for the Card Fall Finish:

But a lot of this year is spent in getting ready for next year and the next cycle, if you will: our new television agreements, changes in our schedule, new seasonal competition, changes to the Players Championship. I'll just tick off a few of these, and then I'd like to provide you some new detail on the new fall series that we announced earlier in the year, and we have a schedule for discussion today.

Let me start with the Players Championship and just provide you an update.

Oh no, not another Players update! 

The FedEx Cup we announced the details of in June in New York. We are creeping into an all out education campaign for our fans around the country and around the world about the FedEx Cup. You'll see that accelerate during the course of the fall. We believe at this point from the reaction primarily of the players who have learned a great deal about it that it has the opportunity of achieving its primary two objectives: one, to give us a year long competition that enhances the importance of each and every week on the PGA TOUR; and, secondly, to give us a good, solid finish to that portion of our season with the playoff events leading into the TOUR Championship.

How does it add importance to each week if 144 players make the playoffs? Oh, sorry, continue...

And by that I mean that we will have seven tournaments, and those seven tournaments will really determine a lot in terms of a player's capability or ability to compete in the FedEx Cup the following year and how that player will be able to compete because some of the things that will happen in the fall will affect the finish of the Money List and certain things within the Money List that impact a player's eligibility for certain events, certainly the World Golf Championships, all these events will have World Ranking points, certainly access to the invitationals to some degree and access to tournaments generally. So it has significant importance.

Uh huh. Notice he points out how the Fall Finish will determine eligibility in the next year's FedEx Cup. Not who will keep their PGA Tour card, but who will have the privilege of competing in the next year's FedEx Cup.

The second week will be the Viking Classic. We will return to the Annandale Golf Club in Madison, Mississippi, with a new sponsor. Viking is Mississippi based manufacturer of premier kitchen appliances. You're familiar with the first rate sponsor.

Oh of course! Love their stuff. My entire mansion is outfitted with Viking products and of course the twin Sub-Z's.

Again, we want to reiterate what we think is an important part of our schedule. All these events will be broad cast or telecast by The Golf Channel in their entirety. It rounds out the relationship with the Golf Channel and the official money season portion of the year, and I think you would agree that all seven events are solid events, good sponsorship, good purses, and excellent playing opportunities for our players as they compete to position themselves for the following year.

Of course we agree it's all good without ever seeing how they all work.

Hey, we've gone a long time without a platform mention.

With that said, I'll just add that we're also excited about 2007 as we move in to our new telecast phase starting in 7 to 12 with CBS, NBC, The Golf Channel, all of our weekend coverage broadcast in HD television, a good solid platform on The Golf Channel with every Thursday and Friday tape delayed, tape replays in the prime time hours of live coverage in the afternoon, which we think is a much more solid platform leading into our weekend coverage.

Yes, much more solid than silly old USA Network and ESPN. Time for questions.

Q. As it relates to the fall series, can players who don't qualify for the TOUR Championship, for East Lake, can they still finish inside the Top 30 by the end of Disney if they choose to play some of these fall series events, that question pertaining to qualifying for say U.S. Open or British.

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Sure. If a player yes. I mean, the Money List is different than points. If a player is not in the TOUR Championship, which I think is your question, could he end up in the Top 30 on the Money List? Absolutely. But in our eligibility structure now for '08, the number one eligibility category will be the Top 30 players in the FedEx Cup points. In other words, those players that go to the TOUR Championship.

Uh, no offense, but no one cares about the Top 30 for the following years Tour. Top 30 for U.S. Open or British, that's kind of a big deal.

And now for the drug questions. [Commissioner steps down from podium, Bob Combs helps him with his tap-dancing shoes.]

Q. This is sort of for a survey story, but unlike other sports like baseball and track & field, there's never been much rumors of performance enhancing drugs in golf. Is that because of the inherent honor system in it? And also, can you conceive of any sport in which it would not be an advantage of a player wanting to cheat and use them?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: There has never been any study that well, to answer your question directly, and then I'll comment on the question, I believe the reason we don't generally in this sport have certainly the level of issues that we have in our sports is because of the sport. The culture of the sport, the history of the sport, it's just as important to a player that he is playing by the rules as it is how good he hits the shot. We all learn that when we learn how to play golf as kids, and that is carried through to be one of the dominating characteristics of play at this level of golf.

Oh yeah, that's really going to play into someone's thinking when there are millions on the line.

Q. You just said that you believe you are paying close attention. What exactly are you doing in regards to paying close attention?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: We've done a lot of work in the last several years with respect to monitoring closely the testing that goes on in other sports, how testing occurs, what substances they're tested for, what happens with the information when it's collected. We've put a lot more energy behind telling players what the do's and don't's are with respect to illegal drugs.

We don't have a list of performance enhancing drugs in golf at this point, but we have certainly made it clear that in golf, utilizing an illegal drug from a performance enhancing standpoint is the same thing as kicking your ball in the rough. They both might enhance your ability to compete.

He's really got to get a new metaphor. The kicking the ball in the rough thing isn't working.

Q. Given that every other sport in the world, even ones that might have been deemed a good social background such as golf, but sports like cricket and rugby, for example, they've all tested and everyone has found someone taking drugs within their sport. The R & A is going to test at this year's Eisenhower, so why is the PGA TOUR not prepared to test given all the evidence in every other sport?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Like I said, at the top, the fact that players in cricket and rugly and baseball, the fact that players take steroids is not evidence to me that players in this sport are taking steroids. I have no evidence of players taking steroids in this sport. If you have some, let me know, but I don't have any of that evidence.

Isn't testing the only way to produce evidence?

Frankly, this subject is not any different to me than any other set of rules. I mean, I noticed the media seems to think it's different, but in my view, it's not. It's not any different. There are rules and they are to be followed, and we expect our players to follow them, and thankfully, over the years, we've had a pretty good track record in that regard.

I don't know of other sports where players have come in and made a mistake on their score card or called a penalty on themselves that's cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. That happens every year on the PGA TOUR. So the culture and the history is somewhat different, and I'm not prepared to throw all that out just because somebody is waving their hand and saying, gee whiz, all the other sports are testing, why aren't you.

Q. We just don't understand how you would know ever if a player was taking drugs if you don't test for it.

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: But I wouldn't know ever for certain that a player wouldn't be moving the ball in the rough unless he comes and tells me because he could mismark his ball, move it around, tap down a spike mark and he can do it without anybody knowing. That is a performance enhancing violation of the rules, and my guess is if we had a problem on this Tour with players taking, would we know about it?

I know some people say Tim is naive on this, he's got his head in the sand. I don't think we're naive. I think we're very aggressive in having the capability to do whatever is necessary, but we need more than somebody just saying why don't you go test and make sure.

Okay, his position is clear. Let's move on.

Q. Let me be devil's advocate on this one. With the posturing and positioning of the FedEx Cup as season ending playoffs, which are terms that we've heard from the publicity side, what makes you think that fans are going to care about the fall series? It seems to me that they've been put in a position that they're almost irrelevant given the fact that there's no guarantee the top players will be there.

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Well, there's no guarantee the top players will play in the Players Championship. There's no guarantee the top players will go play at AT & T. There's no guarantee the top players will play the EDS Byron Nelson. Sometimes they don't.

I think the PGA TOUR is past that. I think we have reached a level where we have real brand strength based on our players.

Not brand strength. REAL brand strength.

Okay, take this part slow.

I remember my first year as Commissioner in a golf cart with Jack Nicklaus driving across the golf course at Memorial, and he had 27 of the Top 30 players on the Money List in the field and he had a number in his hand reading a local article complaining about three guys that weren't there. He said to me, "how can these guys write about three when we've got 27?" I remember the old phrase "prosecution is the enemy of excellence." You get wrapped around the excellence trying to be perfect, you're never going to be excellent. We're seeking excellence.

Well that clears...wait, you have a follow up?

Q. I guess maybe I didn't phrase the question enough. You just used the term grand finale with regard to the FedEx Cup and you've got seven tournaments left on the back end schedule and I'm wondering what the relevance of those tournaments are going to be?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: As I said at the top, I think you have to look at the fall schedule as unique unto itself for a certain set of reasons. It has a certain import. These are PGA TOUR events with PGA TOUR players competing on good golf courses with good sponsors raising a fair amount of money for charity. You start with that.

Is there really anything else? And now, a question from Fresno.

FRESNO: This is the first time we've had anything like this here in Fresno, and if you could just take a minute to tell people what we might expect, who we might expect and as we build up to this tournament.

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: I think we'll have to wait and see in terms of who's going to come and play. That's true with every tournament and certainly every new tournament.

I think important in your case is that our people, and what we think is an excellent golf course getting finished at Running Horse, it's important that the players learn about the quality of the golf course. We'll be encouraging players during the West Coast Swing to get in and play the golf course. That will result in what we hope will be very strong word of mouth. Assuming the golf course performs as well as we think it will, that will translate by the second year, we hope, into a situation where the golf course helps attract a field, which is a very positive thing.

The course in question isn't open, but for a good chuckle, check out the Running Horse web site photos in the home page banner. Just wait until Jack and Jackie disappear, to see what the cart paths will look like, and to see a group of golfers playing as the irrigation system is running. Fun stuff! 

"Give us a chance to sort this out"

Nice to see the PGA Tour Commish Tim Finchem acknowledging that not visiting Chicago annually starting in 2007 was not such a hot idea. Ed Sherman reports:

"The reaction has been strong, and we take that into consideration," said Finchem, in town for the PGA Championship. "It's not often I get e-mails from fans who don't like what we're doing. . . . Give us a chance to sort this out. There may be a change in plans."

"I know people are disappointed about '08 and '10, but I'd like them to think about what they are getting in '07, '09 and '11," he said. "We ask the fans to hang with us. Out of six years, the best players in the world are going to be here at least four years, and maybe [twice in 2012]. That's not bad."

"Will Golf's Integrity Stand Test?"

Damon Hack in the New York Times looks at the possibility of steroids or beta blockers in golf and offers some interesting perspectives.

“Up until this point in time, I would have said it is a fairly laughable question,” Joey Sindelar, a seven-time PGA Tour winner, said in a recent interview. “The guys in my era weren’t workout guys. It didn’t used to be such a brute strength thing. But we’re getting some serious 6-1 baseball-player-type guys. There’s probably going to be a time when you’re going to look at guys and say, ‘Well, sooner or later somebody is going to cross that line.’ ”

And why love him, Joe Ogilvie:

“We market the long ball,” said Joe Ogilvie, a PGA Tour professional and member of its policy board. “We market the guys who hit it 300 yards. If that’s your message, and people see that beginning at the high school level, I think as a tour it is very naïve to think that somebody down the line won’t cheat.

“As it gets more popular and the zeroes continue to grow to the left of the decimal point, I don’t think there is any doubt that there will be cheaters,” Ogilvie added. “Golf is all about length, and the U.S.G.A., the P.G.A. of America and, to a certain extent, the PGA Tour are perpetuating it by blindly lengthening every golf course. It doesn’t seem like they have a whole lot of rhyme or reason.”

Now Joe, we know there's plenty of rhyme and reason: because it's so much easier than altering the ball! And the side effects are wonderful too. Possible drug usage, adding misery to the game, inflating costs. It's all good!

“Maybe I’m naïve, because I have a hard time believing that anyone would cheat, I really do,” said Tom Lehman, the 1996 British Open champion and the 2006 United States Ryder Cup captain. “The culture of golf is such that you play by the rules.

“If you read in the paper that Tom Lehman just won the U.S. Open and he just took a drug test and he’s been using the clear for the last two years, the guys out here would vilify me,” he added, referring to the steroid tetrahydragestrinone. “It’d be over. For that reason alone, almost, it would keep guys clean.”

But there is no drug test, so you don't have to worry about being villified...

Commissioner, care to dance?

“We are monitoring the situation very carefully and we are making sure that players understand that steroids and other illegal substances are in violation of the rules of golf,” Finchem said. “It’s no different taking a steroid to prepare for a golf tournament than it is kicking your ball in the rough.”

Oh, good one! Though I like David Fay's baseball metaphors much better. Of course, they don't work too well on this subject.

“We don’t think it’s prudent to test just because somebody someplace thinks all sports should test,” Finchem said. “Having said that, if some pattern emerged or, candidly, let’s say that didn’t happen, but it just got to the point that no sport was considered clean, then we would have to take aggressive action.

“If we did test, we would not fool around. We would test aggressively and effectively. We would convince people that we are what people think we are in 2006. If we did it, there would be no hesitation on the part of the players. I would predict 100 percent participation.”

Hack offers this:

While there is no evidence suggesting steroid use on the PGA Tour, two players — Jay Delsing and Joe Durant — said they have heard of competitors taking beta blockers, which are often prescribed for heart ailments but can also be used to combat anxiety.

The extent of beta blocker use — and its effectiveness — has been debated for years on the PGA Tour. In 2000, Craig Parry of Australia said that three players, whom he did not identify, had won major championships during the 1990’s while using beta blockers.

His comment prompted Nick Price, a three-time major champion who took beta blockers during the 1980’s because of a family history of high blood pressure, to say that the drugs hurt his golf game by making him sluggish. (Price has said he won his three major titles after he stopped taking beta blockers.)

Durant, also a member of the PGA Tour policy board, said the anecdotes he had heard about beta blockers are similar. “I have heard of guys taking them and saying that they didn’t help them at all,” he said.

Delsing added: “As an athlete, you want your senses. It would be like, ‘I’m calm, but I don’t know where I am.’ ”

These folks really need to read up on the latest anti-depressants!

Dr. Linn Goldberg, a professor of medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University and a spokesman for the Endocrine Society, said beta blockers could affect people differently, but that they are often used to combat a person’s adrenaline flow.

“You can see that happen with someone putting, or shooting archery, or a doctor using it if before giving a talk,” Goldberg said in a telephone interview. “It does steady your nerves because it combats adrenaline when you get nervous or your palms get sweaty and you have a crowd of people around. It mellows you out.”

When Finchem was asked if he was concerned about players using beta blockers on the PGA Tour, he said the Tour’s research found that beta blockers did not help golfers. He said the Tour had anecdotal evidence from three or four players.

“At least two of those players were on prescription, Nick Price being one,” Finchem said. “They had such a negative impact that they saw a dilapidation that made it very difficult to play the game.

“We have never had much of an indication by players that there is use, and in the isolated incidents we’ve seen, it has been as much as a negative as anything.”

Haven't we worn out this Nick Price anecdote enough? How about a study? You know, after the ball study wraps up sometime this decade?

When Woods was asked for his opinion on testing, he answered the question with his own set of questions. “I think we should study it a little bit more before we get into something like that,” he said. “Where does it start? Who does it? Who is in control of it? What are the substances that you are looking for?”

Sindelar, too, said he recognized the complexity, but he also acknowledged the time for testing may be near.

“It’s at the Olympics, it’s everywhere,” Sindelar said of steroid use. “That’s what goes through my mind. If you said you needed a name, I couldn’t say, yes, it’s that guy. But if it’s everywhere, what that says to me is, why do we think golf is insulated?”

Because it is Joey. Isn't that good enough, because we say so?

"To have someone like Steinberg in the room when decisions were being made...Can you put a price on that?"

Thanks to readers Scott and Noonan for this Robert Bell story exposing the interesting relationship between IMG's Mark Steinberg and PGA Tour brass in delivering an improved 2007 date to Greensboro despite having no sponsor on board.

In May of last year, Brazil suggested to Long and other foundation board members that he contact Steinberg about lobbying on behalf of Greensboro.

Brazil knew the tournament, which had struggled in recent years under the Greensboro Jaycees' direction, was turning the corner. The Jaycees were about to relinquish control of the event to a board of directors made up of some of the Triad's most influential business leaders -- a move that would give the tournament much-needed credibility with the tour.

The problem, Brazil said, was getting the tour to recognize this. Like other tournament directors across the country, Brazil couldn't get an audience with PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, who was counseled in the restructuring by two trusted advisers.

One was Ed Moorhouse, the tour's executive vice president.

The other was Steinberg.

This is fun... 

Finchem and Moorhouse did not return phone calls, but Henry Hughes, chief of operations for the tour, said Greensboro did not receive consideration over other tournaments because of Steinberg.

"But certainly when Mark comes to us with an idea, the tour is going to listen," Hughes said. "That's what we did in this case. He's very knowledgeable on this business. It would have been foolish not to consider his expertise."

Long said Greensboro had little choice but to hire Steinberg. Since he sold his insurance company three years ago for $403 million, Long has been inundated with business and charitable requests. One of his financial advisers is charged with screening who gets an audience with Long and, more importantly, who doesn't.

"There's a big difference between sending a letter to an executive and knowing someone who can get you an audience," Long said. "A letter might sit on the executive's desk for weeks -- if it even gets to him. To have someone like Steinberg in the room when decisions were being made ... Can you put a price on that?"

Of course, now that we know this final event before the FedEx Cup finale amounts to a shootout between spots 140-150 for those final places in the playoffs, and that it's before a stretch of four straight weeks of golf, is it really that great of a date?

Why would Tiger, Phil or Vijay or any other stars play Greensboro after playing the PGA/WGC Firestone and before the four-week stretch?

Hawkins On The Commissioners

John Hawkins in the latest Golf World:

In 2006 we've learned Carolyn Bivens and Tim Finchem share at least one common trait: a zeal for prioritizing revenue generation over the game's competitive welfare, then trying to disguise their corporate mentality by peddling it as progress.

And...

The FedEx Cup format has been panned both inside and outside the ropes, becoming the first playoff series to include more participants than are eligible for the regular season.

Coming off the controversial decision to forsake ABC/ESPN and sign for 15 years with an endemic network such as The Golf Channel, Finchem appears to have bartered his legacy to strengthen the tour's fiscal standing. He calls title-sponsor suits to the podium at news conferences, a practice that further reveals his transparent motives. He uses his own time at the microphone to embark on tangents about the tour's economic prowess, then fends off pertinent questions with his patented semantic splendor.

Jeld Win Teleconference

The PGA Tour held a teleconference to unveil yet another new THE PLAYERS logo and to announced another presenting sponsor. Some nice Finchemspeak for your files.

One of the most important things about next year's tournament is the telecast. To think that we're going to have later air times, that's important, but we're going to have limited commercial inventory, with only four minutes of commercials an hour.

Limited commericial inventory. Is that why we have all of those The Villages ads?

So over the years we have been blessed in the last few years with our relationship with Price Waterhouse Coopers and also with UBS. And today we're delighted to announce that Jeld-Wen, which is the largest manufacturer of reliable doors and windows in the world, will become our third sponsor.

That is particularly important to be able to generate the kind of television presentation that we want to present. It's also important to help underpin all the changes and presentation that will occur with the players going forward.

Underpin...nice verb choice Tim. 

Jeld-Wen is -- why Jeld-Wen? Not just that we have a relationship with Jeld-Wen that goes back several years, when Jeld-Wen has been sponsoring a major championship on the Champions Tour, the Tradition. The Jeld-Wen Tradition has quickly become a fixture on the Champions Tour.

Is that like one of the nine majors in a row they're currently playing?

But the nature of the people at Jeld-Wen, the executive team at Jeld-Wen are a group of people that believe in the game of golf. They believe in what the game can do for a brand. They have demonstrated in their relationship with the Tradition out in Portland, a commitment to charity as well, a million dollars have been raised for charitable causes in the Portland area. So they are a natural, big company, global brand to align not just with The PLAYERS, but in association with The PLAYERS with Price Waterhouse Coopers and UBS. So that rounds out our charitable mix and gives us the basis where we can move forward and have the security to know that we can accomplish the things we need to accomplish to create a better PLAYERS and bring it to our fans.

So many words, and yet so little actually said.

Ah but here's the best part, the report on course and clubhouse renovations from David Pillsbury.

DAVE PILLSBURY: Well, first, I can assure you that the windows and doors are in fact Jeld-Wen through and through. We are very proud to say that. A great product for a great clubhouse, building a platform really for the next 25 years.

And you wonder why I'm cynical? 

Ferguson: Blame Tiger and Phil

AP's Doug Ferguson says that Tim Finchem is not entirely to blame for the changes in Chicago and Washington D.C.

Finchem was a convenient target, the czar behind these changes aimed at making the golf season shorter and more interesting.

But it's not all his fault.

If anyone has complaints, look no further than Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. They were the catalysts who first started barking about the PGA Tour season being too long. All the commissioner did was respond to his two biggest stars.

IM'ing With The Commissioners II

Well my NSA sources have scored with another IM chat between Tim Finchem and Carolyn Bivens. As with the first of these IM exchanges obtained, the more recent chat provides a wonderful opportunity to better understand two of golf's most powerful leaders.

DaBrandLady: tim are you there?

twfPGATour©: Yes Carolyn. Hello.

DaBrandLady: how things?

twfPGATour©: Fine, though we hit a bit of a rough patch with some of the media reports lately on the 2007 platform shifts.

DaBrandLady: yeah i saw some of the brand hits you’ve taken. does the market research indicate any concerns?

twfPGATour©: No, all good there. Everyone is very pleased about our new alignment with BMW, the fans in particular are excited to interact with such a positive brand.

twfPGATour©: And all of my Vice Presidents are excited that they might get employee pricing on the new 7 series.

DaBrandLady: that’s wonderful. it's such a great brand.

DaBrandLady: and what about Washington D.C., we’re doing some benchmarking on a possible event there…

twfPGATour©: Solid demos, tricky permitting issues when you are trying to rebrand a golf course. Thomas Boswell is a bit of a pain, too.

DaBrandLady: speaking of rebranding, as part of the many exciting initiatives we are embarking on, i think we have something you will love

twfPGATour©: Oh?

DaBrandLady: i been reading that you love cooking

twfPGATour©:  Oh don’t believe everything Greg Norman and Sean Murphy say

DaBrandLady: not that kind of cooking silly! i meant food cooking, you know like on The Food Channel

twfPGATour©: Oh right, of course.

DaBrandLady: I was hoping you would buy some copies our new LPGA and Canyon Ranch branded cookbook

DaBrandLady: we’re leveraging the equity of both brands for charity!!!!!

twfPGATour©: That’s great Carolyn. Good for you. You know giving back is the heart of the PGA TOUR(C)

twfPGATour©: Just send a couple dozen copies over and I’ll give them out to policy boards for Christmas

DaBrandLady: oh, that's such an old demo, can’t you skew a little younger?

twfPGATour©: You know I’m always trying.

DaBrandLady: the pga tour should consider its own book cooking

DaBrandLady: I mean, book on cooking

twfPGATour©: You mean harnessing some of our young, athletic and young players?

DaBrandLady: like villegas! if i were you’d, I get him to the oscars after parties next year

twfPGATour©: Huh?

DaBrandLady: didn’t you hear about our oscars night branding?

twfPGATour©: Oh yes, yes, great idea, I’ll note that. Uh Carolyn, while I have you here...

DaBrandLady: Yes Tim?

twfPGATour©: These points standings and playoffs you have…

DaBrandLady: yes?

twfPGATour©: It’s connecting with the fans, right?

DaBrandLady: oh absolutely, you should see the hits we are getting on the desktop wallpaper download

twfPGATour©: Wallpaper?

DaBrandLady: yes, check it out:  LPGA Desktop Wallpaper

DaBrandLady: the 12-24 year olds love it. i use karrie webb in her nabisco robe for my computer desktop.

twfPGATour©: Oh I’ll check it out. Is there one for Brittany Lincicome?

DaBrandLady: oh tim, you identify with her can-do attitude, don’t you?

twfPGATour©: Yep, she’s a fighter. And I think I’m going to have to be one of this points thing doesn’t work out.

DaBrandLady: it’ll work out great tim, I know it. trust me, I have good instincts on these things

twfPGATour©: Thanks Carolyn, it’s reassuring to hear that from you.

DaBrandLady: anytime tim.

twfPGATour©: Well, goodnight Carolyn, give my best to…to...

DaBrandLady: he says hi back too! night!

Questioning Finchem

Ed Sherman on his Chicago Tribune golf blog:

...to hear people talk, rotating the tournament to other Midwest cities also was part of the price. No way. The Evans Scholars would make just as much money if the tournament stayed at Cog Hill.

We spent the entire week in the press room trying to figure out why PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem made this decision. There has to be something we're missing, perhaps some grand marketing scheme that is way over our feeble brains.

I don't think so. There can't be a reasonable explanation why the PGA Tour would leave the nation's third largest market to go to much smaller towns in the Midwest.

Even worse, do you realize in 2008 the Tour won't be in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.? When I asked Jim Furyk about that situation last week, he tried to be diplomatic, but you could see he was troubled by the Tour's lack of presence in the major markets.

Perhaps, the Tour wants to go small-time.  That has to be it, because its thinking certainly is small time.

Michaux: "Finchem is a corporate drone"

In introducing this web site's week in review, I wondered why Tim Finchem has received little criticism for so many questionable initiatives, most notably the recently announced FedEx Cup.

Well, the Augusta Chronicle's Scott Michaux not only criticizes Finchem, but undoubtedly will have some Vice Presidents running around tomorrow working to make sure no one ever utters the words "FedEx Cup Evaluation System."

It is difficult to swallow, much less stomach.

What I'm talking about is PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem's undigestible contrivance coming in 2007 dubbed - depending on your threshold for corporate jargon - the FedEx Cup or Finchem's Folly.

A couple of weeks ago, Finchem unveiled the hardly anticipated FedEx Cup Evaluation system, which heretofore will be referred to by its acronym, FECES.

Whoa Nellie!

Without boring you in excruciating Finchemesque fashion with any of the details you already don't care about, it is just another list attempting to quantify the relative values of professional golfers in a cluttered landscape that already includes an official world ranking, money winnings, orders of merit, various international team standings, etc.

The only thing that makes the FECES curiously different is the PGA Tour's transparent attempt to mathematically equate its Players Championship with the universally acclaimed four major championships.

Uh Scott, it's now THE PLAYERS. Please, get your facts straight!

Finchem's goal with this whole FECES thing is to create a "playoff-like" finish to his laudably truncated PGA Tour season. Through the first 36 events of the season, the roughly 240 players who start the year with some semblance of official status will be whittled all the way down to 144 lucky few who qualify for a four-week, no-tee-times-barred, battle royale culminating at the Tour Championship at East Lake. For getting hot at just the right time, Finchem will reward $10 million to the man who, in essence, turns out to be the glorified player of the month.

When the FECES hits the fans, will anyone care other than the individual who'll get to fortify his already lucrative retirement portfolio?

No.

Finchem believes he created some kind of excitement that will compare to NASCAR's season-ending chase for its championship or the NFL's compelling buildup to the Super Bowl. Instead he's done nothing but give birth to another flawed BCS concept that ultimately won't resolve anything. He's tried to rationale his baby with another postseason analogy about a 105-win Yankees team having to start over in October, but those Yankees wouldn't have to start over against the last-place Royals.

And he's just warming up.

If this were the only thing that Finchem had overdone in his tenure as commissioner of the PGA Tour, it would be almost excusable. But seeing as he's callously dismantled or neutered some golfing traditions that have been around for more than a century in the process, shackled the tour to the ultra-fringe Golf Channel for an astonishing 15 years and stepped on the toes of every other worldwide golfing entity with his avarice, Finchem's Folly loses any benefit of the doubt.

Finchem is a corporate drone who believes everything is better based upon money. If the Players pays more money than the Masters Tournament, it must be better. If The Golf Channel is willing to pay you more money over the course of 15 years than ESPN would have for the next four, it must be better.

That's why Finchem believes he's doing a good job, because the players he (with one whopper of an assist by Tiger Woods) made rich and spoiled gave him a $27 million contract extension.

More money, however, hasn't made the PGA Tour better. It's made it worse. Extra zeroes only add to the numbing. If you really want to see the best players on the PGA Tour going head-to-head more often, start paying them what they were making back in the '80s and early '90s - when making a million dollars was a season's work for the hardest workers who performed the best instead of a week's salary for a tournament winner or the median annual income for finishing in the top 150.

Just how much of Finchem's decision-making is based upon money? Consider that the only way the nearly 70-year-old event in Greensboro, N.C., was spared the cutting block was because it ponied up $500,000 to agent Mark Steinberg - just to be granted an audience with Finchem in order to make its case.

Ah, there's a story that no one really has explored enough.

That was not a benefit granted to, say, the 102-year-old Canadian Open, which was rendered all but obsolete with an untenable date between the British Open and PGA. Or the Western Open, which will be stripped of its venerable title and relegated to semi-annual visits to the Chicago area. Or the tournament outside Washington D.C., which was shut out of the regular season because FedEx attracted favoritism to its Memphis, Tenn., event. Or the Disney Classic and 84-year-old Texas Open, which were all but dismissed without any more dialogue than a curt "thanks for coming."

Not that the overly fattened PGA Tour season couldn't use a little trimming, but Finchem handled the whole process badly.

This next statement is precisely why Finchem can't be relied upon to deal with equipment.

Finchem constantly displays an arrogant disregard for everything in golf outside of his own tunnel vision. Who cares if the new tour schedule will gut the European Tour's prime events during the spring and late summer? Who cares if its big announcements distract the attention from the LPGA Tour's most important event? Who cares if none of the so-called World Golf Championship events are played in front of audiences outside the United States?

Finchem has unilaterally constructed the PGA Tour to fit his vision. Thank goodness he has no control over any of the major championships, meaning the most important historical results of the year will never be sullied by an inadequate TPC venue or distasteful title sponsorship.

At least that knowledge can settle the uneasiness in the stomachs of the constituents who really matter - the golf fans.

The "Playoffs" Teleconference

Tim Finchem and a bunch of other suits convened in New York to plug the Fed Ex Cup. And as is usually the case, the Tour shows little imagination in creating their "playoffs." Dan Hicks emceed.

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM:   Thank you, Dan.   Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to an announcement that we hope embarks us on what we hope will be a new era in golf.

This morning in Washington, D.C., we had an annual breakfast, our fifth annual breakfast with 16 or 17 members of Congress to talk about the progress of the First Tee Program. 

I wonder if anyone asked about the demise of the Booz Allen?

As I was coming up here today focusing on this announcement, it occurred to me that here we are again announcing a new initiative in New York, and one that I think with great enthusiasm we will be able to look back on a few years from now and recognize the same kind of progress in what the FedEx Cup is trying to do with what we've seen in First Tee.   The difference is, of course, that today we're not starting from scratch the way we were with First Tee.   We started with a tremendously successful platform that communicates the game of golf.

And if you nodded in understanding at that last sentence, you need help.

When we concluded the elements of what we wanted to do in basic form, we thought that we needed a sponsor company and a partner that had two major qualifications.   First of all, we needed a company with a brand that could integrate easily across the entire PGA TOUR platform, because each week we did not want to take away from the importance of our title sponsors.

Because Lord knows, the fans tune in looking for brand platform integration.

So let's hear from the suckers ponying up $35 million a year for these exciting playoffs.

MIKE GLENN:   Thank you, Commissioner.   It's a pleasure for us to be here today, especially given our long-standing relationship with the PGA TOUR.   It's been wonderful being the title sponsor of the FedEx St. Jude Classic for so many years, and I have to tell you it's a bit bittersweet to give that up, but clearly we are moving to a new level and we are very excited about that.

It would be an understatement to say that this is a significant day for sport of golf and the PGA TOUR, and I can tell you that I speak on behalf of hundreds of thousands of employees and contractors of FedEx to say that we are very happy to extend our relationship with the PGA TOUR and to be the sponsor of the FedEx Cup.

Sports marketing has been a very important part of the way that we've built our brand and supports our brand for many, many years, and we truly believe that the FedEx Cup will be a very unique and special addition to our portfolio.   The Cup is very consistent with our brand values and reliability, excellence, precision and leadership and we're looking forward to 2007 when we begin the FedEx Cup.

And we're looking forward to hearing you and the Commissioner mentioning reliability 450,000 times over the life of the contract.

Here's where it gets just plain sad.

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM:   Let me turn to focus on the second part, which is our version of the playoffs.   As we looked at it, we had a number of questions to be answered.   How can we structure playoff that is created big events?   We wanted each week to stand on its own and be a huge event in the market it's played and for all of our fan base of 110, 112 million Americans to really focus on it.   When I say "Americans," I should go beyond, because so many of our players today are international; it's really a world fan base.

Good salvage job there Commish.

But that challenge and the additional questions of creating a series that every player felt the need, the want and the enthusiasm to play in each and every week to create a series of weeks that is unheard of where all of the players would play head-to-head in four straight weeks created a number of questions.   I want to try to answer those questions, but before I do, let me introduce a little piece of video.   NBC was kind enough to ask Jimmy Roberts to take a few minutes and try to put the notion of playoffs for golf in perspective.

          (Video played).

(Commissioner gives two claps, The Clapper turns lights back on)

Oh sorry, it was that or poking fun at Jimmy Roberts.

But let me show you for a second how the playoffs set up and how they work.   First of all, the players play again through the regular season and they get to a seeding point.   So when they are seeded, the points they have earned to date go away, and they now are awarded a certain number of points that they will carry into the playoffs, and they will earn points each of the four playoff weeks.   The screen you see is the reset point distribution.

So if Stuart, who is in fifth or sixth place right now this year, and we were doing the Cup this year were to progress and end up in first place, he would have 100,000 points.   He'd have a 1,000-point lead over the No. 2 player, and you can see the distribution right on down the list.   The philosophy here is that Stuart should be awarded some benefit for the play that he has had all year long.   He's won tournaments, he's worked hard, he's played a well and he's got himself into that No. 1 seed position.   But it is not an award that precludes him from significant competition.   Therefore, the intervals between players are fairly slim.   And it creates on one hand more or less a home-field advantage, if you will; in some sports you can argue whether there is real a home-field advantage, versus a very volatile system where a lot of players go into the playoffs with an opportunity to win.

If you have any idea what the home-field advantage thing is about, please let me know, because I have no idea what he's talking about.

When you consider that each of our four events is going to have a prize money each week of $7 million, it means that if Stuart is in that first position or in the fifth position at the end of the seeding process, the regular season, he's looking at the next four weeks being worth $63 million in total payout.   And it is that amount of money, coupled with everything else going into the Cup, which we think sets it apart and makes it very, very special.

Yes, to the players. But for the fans?

Here's the Barclay's dude, Bob Diamond, who puts Finchem to shame with some of this MBAspeak.

Let me give you a sense, just a couple of things about why this is important to an organization like Barclays.   You know, first and foremost, it's who do we think we are and how do we think of ourselves.   And you heard Jimmy Roberts talk on the video just a few minutes ago about golf being a game of tradition, it's really one of the world's oldest, most traditional games.   Well, in Barclays, we first took to posit in the City of London in 1689.   We have been in the banking business over 300 years, over 100 years here in the United States.

When we think about ourselves, we think about tradition, we think about strength and we think about excellence.   But we also think about the importance of being around the globe of our global footprinting business.   Another thing that's important to us is our U.S. build.  

(Finchem scribbles "footprinting" on yellow tablet, circles it twice.)

Time for questions and where the bad news arrives. It seems the playoffs aren't really playoffs.

Q.   Most playoffs that I know don't include every member of a league, but in yours, everybody plays in the first three tournaments.   Have you thought of reducing the field after all the points were accumulated leading up to the first playoff tournament?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM:   We have, and we thought about it a great deal.   We've concluded that with the first playoff event, the Barclays Classic, we assume that every player in the field will have a mathematical chance to win.   We could reduce it the next two weeks, but we don't feel the need to do.

So now, we may change our mind and probably will change our mind on some things as we go forward as we analyze it each year, and right now, we're of the view that the players are really focused all season long on getting into the playoffs and if they played hard enough to get there, they should have the opportunity to participate.

Yes, but you see in real playoffs, eventually we send people home.

Also, we recognize that winning is what is most important in the playoffs, and it's harder to win a tournament when you have more competition; I think virtually any PGA TOUR player will tell you that.   So at this juncture for those reasons, we are going to stay the course, and we'll see as we evaluate it in the out year.

So I don't think it's unusual that we should have a system that's different from every other sport in this respect.   The key question is:   Does it work for us and does it work with the culture of our sport.

Culture, nice, but it's no footprinting.    

Q.   I'd just like a clarification, as I understand it, you won't be eliminating any players until you get to the TOUR Championship; is that correct?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM:   There will be players, Jerry, who fall below a line of mathematically that are able to win the Cup.   Each week that line will descend.   But the field sizes, if you make it to the playoffs, you can play all three of the first three events in 2007, that's correct.

What that's going to create, obviously, is a player who no longer has a mathematical chance to win might play lights-out for two weeks and move well up into the points list from a distribution standpoint.   Now, that doesn't bother us, and it's another something for people watching to pay attention to.

Or not. Wouldn't this work better if they eliminated players once they had no mathmatical chance to win the Fed Ex Cup?

Q.   Commissioner, the number going into Barclays, is that 144, how many players?   And the 2007 BMW will begin the third day following Labor Day observed; will that be the position of the BMW each year?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM:   That is correct.   There will be 144 players off of the FedEx Cup point list eligible to play at Barclays, and the same 144 players eligible to play at the Deutsche Bank Championship and the BMW Championship.

Yes that's right, players who will be losing their full status get into these playoffs.

If, and let me just further clarify; if a player is ill, he would not be replaced.   If a player cannot play for whatever reason, he would not be replaced.   There are no sponsor exemptions.   There is no open qualifying.   There is no alternate list.   You must make the 144 finishing at Greensboro to be in a position to play one of those three events.

Wow, rigorous standards to get into these playoffs.

What a farce.

Final count from the press conference: 3 platforms, 13 brand(s), 2 brandings and 3 cultures. Oh and 1 footprinting. 

Boswell On Tour; Kite On TPC's

Thomas Boswell on the PGA Tour...

Golf is the game of sportsmanship and proper manners, the sport that exemplifies respect for others. We even use it to teach values to kids, to instill the idea that conscience defines character.

So, this is a week for golf -- at least the crass, ungrateful traveling-circus PGA Tour version -- to hang its head in shame.

t's no accident that all of the world's four major championships are run by organizations other than the PGA Tour. The tour keeps pumping its own Players Championship to join the elite. But it'll never happen -- not as long as the tour humiliates itself, shows its true colors, and drives itself down the scale of social respectability with disasters such as the one it is perpetrating in Washington this week.

Even a golf tournament deserves a decent burial. The funeral for the summer pro golf stop in Washington is being held at TPC Avenel this week. The PGA Tour didn't even have the decency to close the casket.

And this from Tom Kite on TPC's...

"The tour has made the mistake of opening [its] TPCs too early many times," Kite said. "We played Memphis too early. We played this one too early. That's probably nothing more than mismanagement -- just not taking the time to pay attention to the golf courses. . . . They've kind of jumped in, tried to make money.

"Unfortunately, that leaves us with some bad names and reputations for the TPCs."

Finchem On Furrowed Bunkers

I'm fascinated by the part about the it not being interesting for spectators if the guys are getting up and down a lot...

Q. We haven't had a chance to talk to you since what happened with the Memorial with the bunkers. What were your feelings? How do you think the test case worked out? Is there anything that you regret in regards to most specifically maybe not notifying the players beforehand?

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: I think if you just stand back and look it from a strictly competitive standpoint, it's hard to argue with our team, our officials, who feel strongly on this point, Nicklaus and his people, who feel strongly on this point, which is that bunkers are hazards, and you play the ball as it lies. (Indiscernible) competitively play the hazard. There was a growing sentiment, I guess, that this may be fueled by (indiscernible) over the last 12 years, but there's a growing sentiment that bunker play has become too routine.

I hear it on two levels: one is that it's not competitively challenging enough, and number two, it's not interesting enough to the spectator if guys are getting up and down a lot. The problem with that thinking a little bit is, however, that they'll always get up and down.

If you stand back and look at Memorial, 2005, players got up and down I think 47% of the time on greenside bunkers. This year they got up and down 42% of the time. It's not a huge falloff.

It seems to me it's a different issue in the fairway bunkers. How you want the fairway bunkers to play in my mind is a different issue than the greenside bunkers.

This is all I think healthy, positive for the game, to have this discussion, to have this focus on variety in setting up a golf course, including raking of the bunkers. I think it's fair game. I think a lot of players feel that way.

Now, having said that, I was not comfortable in hindsight about the way we went about it. I think if we're going along with a certain philosophy for a certain number of years, it's only reasonable to inform the players in advance if you're going to make some major shift in that philosophy, allow them to take the steps, whether mentally or physically, in terms of practice or getting their heads together in terms of how to play.

Now, if there was one isolated thing, it might be one thing. But we have a pattern of setups. I think you need to tell the players. If we were coming to Avenel this week and we put every tee back 50 yards, I think we should tell the players that was happening. I think that's not unreasonable. I don't think there's anything unhealthy about having our players involved in discussions to that point. Not that they make the call, our rules team makes the call in most instances.

I don't have any problem with the application, the process. I think we should be a little bit more careful. Bottom line is, I think it was a reasonable, healthy exercise that stimulates discussion and focus on different parts of setup philosophy that can contribute to challenges that are good for the competition and also interesting to the spectators.