ALTHOUGH the detail of the US PGA Tour's 2007 schedule has yet to emerge, the proposed restructuring has met with the approval of Ireland's Padraig Harrington. Whether the changes do much for the European Tour is a moot point.
Harrington was referring in particular to the radical switch in the date of the traditional finale to the American circuit, the Tour Championship. Last Sunday it brought down the curtain on the PGA Tour in its traditional November slot, but two years from now it will be played in mid-September.
That, effectively, would be the end of the season for the top American players. The Tour Championship will be the culmination of a prestigious four-tournament competition to be known as the Fed-Ex Cup. Thereafter Tiger Woods and Co can put their feet up or play in the numerous unofficial, but lucrative, invitation events which are currently squashed into the last six weeks of the year.
The new schedule will be driven by the need to negotiate a television deal to replace the dollars-850 million contract which expires at the end of next season. With the Players' Championship, which is ridiculously referred to as the unofficial fifth Major, moving forward in the calendar to May, the scene is set for a shorter, more-focused, season for the top American players.
The danger to the European Tour is obvious. A PGA season which gets under way in earnest with the US Masters in April and ends (for the big names) in mid-September with the Tour Championship would clash directly with the time of year when European Tour events are staged on this continent.
According to Harrington, who has membership of both tours, the revised American schedule could actually play into the hands of the European Tour. His reasoning, and it has to be assumed that he uttered the words before engaging his brain, is that the likes of Tiger, Phil Mickelson and Davis Love might wish to spend their newly-acquired free time at such glittering attractions as the Dunhill Links Championship.
Tiger, like Vijay Singh who has actually played in the St Andrews tournament, is not adverse to a bit of world travel if it boosts his bank balance and keeps his global image fresh. But to suggest Mickelson, Love and their ilk will leave America for anything other than a Major is approaching the realms of fantasy.
What must be exercising the mind of European Tour chief executive George O'Grady is the opposite: what adverse effect the 2007 PGA Tour schedule will have on his circuit. The public pronouncements will, as ever, be optimistic, but already there is one potentially huge clash between the rescheduled Players' Championship at Sawgrass and the flagship European Tour BMW Championship at Wentworth. Given a choice between these two, even the most loyal of the top European players would be in a quandary.
Aswe saw on many occasions in the season just finished, the European Tour already suffers from a surfeit ofevents which the top players wouldn't contemplate entering. That's fine for the journeymen left to fight it out for decent money, but both from a televisual and sponsorship perspective, the sight of middle-aged men and young unknowns scrapping it out for the spoils holds little appeal.
The reality is, just as in all professional sports, that the top players will gravitate to where the top money is, and that, especially in the Tiger era, is America. Once world ranking points are factored in - and players need to be in the top 50 to be guaranteed entry to the Majors - the whole golfing show is geared to playing in the United States.
At present, those Europeans who haven't entirely thrown their lot in with the PGA Tour tend to ease in and out of America for runs of two, or three, tournaments before returning to support their own tour. Now, in a more compressed American season, the temptation will be to stay Stateside for longer periods.
Only the Open Championship, as one of the Majors, offers the Americans any real incentive to come to this continent, although some will also make the effort for world championship events. Unlike the Europeans, however, almost none of the Americans will build a three-tournament package around the Open.
With the one-way trend across the Atlantic unlikely ever to be reversed, all O'Grady can do is restructure the European Tour schedule to ensure there are no embarrassing clashes with the American version. It's not ideal, but it's reality.
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