World tour at last

American PGA Tour superstars Camilo Villegas and Anthony Kim decided to join the European Tour officially. For elite players such as the aforementioned, the four Major championships as well as the three World Golf Championships - soon to be four with the impending addition of the HSBC Champions - count as events played on both the US and European PGA Tours. This means that to maintain, assuming neither wins but earns enough to keep status status on both tours, each would have to find eight more events in America and at least four more in Europe to continue playing both Tour. Given the scale of prize money offered, the US and European PGA Tours are the richest in the world, and hence attract the best talent. The Race to Dubai, the European Tour counterpart to the FedEx Cup, provided impetus for Kim, Villegas, and possibly Phil Mickelson to split time on both Tours. This poses a problem for the US PGA Tour as two, maybe three, of its biggest non-Tiger draws broaden their horizons, but the best playing all over the world is truly good for the game.

 

Globalizing an ostensibly leisure class pastime could not have come at a more opportune time. Despite downturns in the global economy, incomes around the world are still growing. Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, and even Russian golfers are playing in sanctioned Tour events. Granted the talent level of some is not as high as that of players from countries with longer traditions of instruction and growth of the game, continued increases in wealth in emerging market nations will naturally spread the growth of golf. Global saturation of the game is ultimately attainable. As such, the pool of possible sponsors grows, and everyone will benefit from more market opportunities.

 

Though Greg Norman envisioned formal establishment of a global tour, Tiger Woods became the standard and the icon of the modern, globe trotting touring professional, a role anyone would relish if given the opportunity. Though Norman has 69 international victories and Woods' contemporaries Ernie Els (44) and Vijay Singh (22) also balanced obligations on US, European, South African and Asian Tours, Woods has been the first truly international figure in the game because of his genealogical links to both America and the world. Anthony Kim is similar in that respect. Camilo Villegas attended and completed university in America, but he maintains strong ties and pride in his native heritage. Personified bridging of multiple cultures and ethnicities has given stars of this generation the broad appeal that the previous, mostly foreign born globetrotters did not. Others such as Vardon, Ray, Palmer and Player managed an international schedule, but private jet aviation has raised the profile of the profession even further.

 

Two concerns do emerge. First, how will the US Tour and European Tour business models coexist? Second and more glaringly, why is there a dearth of American players with seemingly few international ties willing to play away from home? 

 

The US PGA Tour receives a tax exemption from the US government because it is a non-profit organization - 501(c)3 status, in the parlance of the Internal Revenue Service. The European Tour runs its events on a for profit basis. One discrepancy between the two models is that European Tour events can pay appearance fees where a player may receive money for teeing it up. Sponsors with deep pockets can lure top players with financial inducements. It is unclear whether attracting players that way has an overall economic benefit of holding the tournament or merely strokes the egos of rich tournament organizers eager for prestige. Such practice might become de rigeur in a more global golf tour, for the Asian, Sunshine, and Australasian PGA Tours as well as the Europeans all follow for profit business models for their tournaments. Tee up money may seem grubby and anathema to the spirit of competition to Americans accustomed to golf tournaments enriching only the contestants and then otherwise raising money for charity. 

 

Perhaps revisiting the American business model is in order if Villegas and Kim, who will join young stars such as Trevor Immelman, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Andres Romero, Brandt Snedeker, Adam Scott, and Aaron Baddeley, will play less in the States. Young and talented, in some cases single, men will take advantage of opportunity to travel, and the US PGA Tour will have to accommodate a partial talent drain. 

 

Second, American players seem loath to play overseas even with the newly dangling incentive before them. Some will argue that the presence of international players on the US Tour order of merit has crowded out American talent and eroded opportunities for native players. Some American players - Phil Mickelson with Barclays, Brandt Snedeker with Bridgestone - have international endorsement deals which oblige them to play abroad, though some would willingly play overseas out of a desire to travel and a personal sense of adventure. However, the duties of family take precedence, and most wives are not keen on having their husbands travel thirty weeks of the year to earn a living. Having to go internationally will not assuage such concerns. Aside from personal commitments, what is stopping American players from going overseas? American players are talented enough to compete with their international counterparts. Some complain about bad food, bad weather, language barriers, and other provincial grumbling. International players deal with assimilation in America because they know that such a sacrfice is little compared to securing their own and their families' financial future. 

 

Presently, the money on the US Tour blows away the pay scales in Europe, but that may shift because of talent flight and more tournaments following a for-profit financial model. When it happens, US players may be playing catch up and find the rules of tour membership further stacked against them. Such a scenario is probable, though not for some time. It took less than twenty years for the economics of a staid game with narrow appeal to expand to what it is now. Within any artificial system, culture and technology accelerate the rate of change itself and hence the time interval it takes for change to occur. American golfers have two choices: either play better or adapt and take a shot at playing a few real road games.