GOLF: Jon Swift
THE South African Professional Golf Association (SAPGA) is bidding to include three European Tour tournaments in this year’s event roster. In this, there is potentially a lot of long-term benefit. But there is some less than welcome news in the shorter term.
It could be argued that the inclusion of the Lexington PGA as a European event in last year’s FNB Tour cost way too much for one of the longest-serving sponsors on the tour. Certainly, the brand felt this way and pulled
The Rembrandt Group will doubtless continue the sponsorship of a European Tour event. But it will be with a brand which has legs in Europe. And it won’t be at Wanderers, the traditional home of the PGA. The betting is that the PGA will move to Houghton.
There was also the feeling that the quality of player the lone event in South Africa attracted from the European Tour was far below par.
SAPGA executive director Brent Chalmers has a valid point in pointing out that three consecutive tournaments will almost certainly draw a percentage of the top players in Europe.
And with the European Tour shooting at rivalling the attractions of the US Tour by becoming a world golfing circus — there are already tournaments in Asia on the roster and Australasia is firmly in the gun sights — a trio of events in this country must be a strong possibility on paper.
And, with the top 65 on the FNB Order of Merit exempt from qualification for European Tour tournaments according to the way Chalmers envisages it, there is more than enough space for South Africans to both make far bigger purses than the local tour would offer and, as a natural consequence, earn valuable points on the European Order of Merit.
That is how it maps out in theory. In reality there are any number of problems, not least of which is finding the sponsors — individual or joint — to ante up the millions needed to append the European Tour logo to tournaments in this country.
Following directly from that is the inevitable downgrading of FNB tournaments which don’t qualify as one of the big three. TV coverage of the Winter Tour tournaments — now included in the expanded local tour Order of Merit — has been relegated to week-after highlight packages.
Can sponsors of tournaments on the main schedule without big three status hope for any better treatment? This is a volatile and highly debatable point. But the reality of it is that this is a distinct possibility.
The timing of the big three in the FNB schedule could also present problems.
If these events are too close to the start of the local tour then the big names of South African golf who have earned no points in Europe or on the winter segment of the tour will have to rely on sponsors’ invitations. There can be no other way to include them. Chalmers cannot shave the number of South African qualifiers from the 65 he has set as a benchmark without a revolution from among the ranks of the stay-at-home pros who will be the ones who miss out.
It is of interest to note here that it is the local pros who make up the bulk of the constituency which votes the PGA executive in or out. Too much finangling with the pay packets and they’ll be looking elsewhere.
If the events are too close to the end of the local tour schedule then the same equation applies, perhaps even more so for those in the top 65 who have been given an extra window of opportunity on the Order of
Allied to this is the fact that our top players are heavily contracted to overseas commitments and the local PGA runs the distinct risk of the cream only arriving for the big money tournaments and giving the events which have effectively been given satellite status a miss.
It is a delicate balancing act. It remains to be seen whether, with all the various balls in the air, the tour manages to maintain some sort of equilibrium.