The Australian Masters' Web site is already warning potential spectators to snap up tickets as soon as possible
Organizers say supply (especially for the final rounds) is short, four months before the event tees off in mid-November at Kingston Heath Golf Club in Melbourne, writes Brian Heard.
One big reason: Tiger Woods committed to the tournament in March, as did Australia's best player Geoff Ogilvy.
Woods reportedly receives $3-million appearance fees when he plays overseas, which he has done in Thailand and Qatar in addition to other international locales through the years.
Is this the direction professional golf is headed - some sort of international federation or merger? Makes sense, appearance fees aside.
The PGA Tour has already tried to address and market to the length and lack of popularity of its schedule at certain times of the year; namely the winter (January through March) and the fall (September through November) when there are fewer fans at events than a Wham! reunion concert and when the TV audience consists of die-hards only.
Why not work with the European PGA Tour and start creating a new schedule with international destinations? The European Tour has reached out globally, playing events in Singapore, China, India and Dubai.
Sure, there'd be lots of details to be worked out and compromises to be made. But contrary to what the newly elected U.S. government wants us to believe, the economy domestically in the U.S. and around the world isn't getting stronger, certainly not at more than snail's pace, at any rate. The bottom line is this: Sponsors pay the freight at professional golf tournaments, and sponsors are increasingly getting harder to find and keep, especially considering how many of them are automotive companies and financial institutions - two of the hardest-hit industries by the recession.
The LPGA Tour is aggressively moving in an ever-increasing international direction, with three stops in Mexico, one each in Thailand, Singapore, France, Canada, England (the British Open), China, Japan and Korea. And with American sponsorships drying up like a creek bed during a month-long drought, the future of the tour rests with its ability to market the game overseas.
The PGA Tour isn't in the same scary financial situation as the LPGA, but why not be proactive, instead reactive?
Previewing the Travelers
Well, we had another dramatic U.S. Open, with a nice (though admittedly boring) guy winning his first Major in Lucas Glover at a tournament with enough plot twists to make a best-selling novelist proud.
But (there's always a but, right?), with a Major comes a hangover - not necessarily from partying too long, but from playing too hard. Many of the world's elite won't be in Connecticut at the Travelers Championship this week.
That said, it's not a bad field. No Tiger. No Phil. Fine, we're used to that. Let's get over it and get to who is playing.
Favorites? At tourney like this, it's hard to predict. But Glover will be there - maybe the momentum will carry over. Sergio Garcia (granted he's having a tough season) is there, and actually played pretty well at the U.S. Open, tying for 10th, his best finish of the season. And, how about Hunter Mahan? The talented 27-year-old seems primed for a win - hasn't missed a cut all year and has nine top-25s; tied for sixth at the Open. Then there's 48-year-old Kenny Perry, who has seven top-10s at the Travelers and has already won this year at the FBR Open and almost won the Masters too.
Mix in Vijay Singh, Anthony Kim, David Toms, Brian Gay and Stewart Cink (the reigning Travelers champ) and we could have a pretty legitimate leaderboard come this weekend.
But the most interesting player to watch will be Ricky Barnes, the 28-year-old who dominated the U.S. Open during the first three rounds before succumbing to the pressure Monday to finish in a tie for second, which was, by far, his best-ever finish on the PGA Tour.
Barnes, a wildly talented amateur, who won the U.S. Amateur as a 21-year-old in 2002, turned pro out of the University of Arizona as one of the more highly touted prospects of his generation.
He hasn't lived up to the hype, spending the majority of his six-year pro career on the Nationwide Tour. He's officially listed as a rookie on the PGA Tour this season and hadn't finished higher than a tie for 47th before last weekend.
So, has he turned a corner with the potential he once showed, and flashed again last weekend, within view; or is it back to inconsistency and anonymity?
That's the beauty of all PGA Tour events, and sports in general - we can speculate, but we'll have to wait to find out.
