"Why transparency works, and why the Tour’s policy doesn’t."

Rex Hoggard may want to watch his back in the Commissioner's Buffet next week at The Players The PLAYERS. First there was his report on the TPC Sawgrass greens and now his commentary suggesting the PGA Tour could learn from the NBA's transparency.

Following Adam Silver's press conference announcing Donald Sterling's lifetime ban, Hoggard was prompted to look at the tour's secretive handling of Steve Elkington's various inappropriate Tweets.

If ever there was a moment of inertia when the Tour had the right of way to take a stand and make it clear that it would not tolerate homophobic nonsense it was now, and yet the circuit hid behind a dogmatic policy.

Instead of taking a stand, like Silver, and sending a clear message, not just to its players but the public who follows the sport, the Tour clung to the small print in the player handbook and doled out, at best, a two-tournament suspension for Elkington’s misguided attempt at humor and what has become habitually poor decisions.

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has repeatedly stated that the Tour is, on balance, a respectable lot of rule followers, and more than 15 years covering the circuit leads me to agree. But to think every player who plays for pay is enlightened is misguided.

Maybe if the Tour took a public and pointed stand last July following his offensive tweet about Pakistanis, Elkington would have kept his comments about Sam to himself. It likely wouldn’t have changed his outlook on the world, but it would have kept his finger off the “tweet” button, and that’s a start.

It's also the same issue with slow play: no penalties or even letting people know who was on the clock forbids the public from knowing that say, just using an example here because his name is easy to spell...that Ben Crane is hellaciously slow and never makes an effort to pick up the pace.