[Craig Sweet]

From the NY Times...no byline.

Personally, I think the blame for what is happening with the Tour can not be laid at the feet of Woods and Mickleson...but this writer seems to think so.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/sports/AP-GLF-On-The-Fringe.html

[TaylorA]

It was written by Doug Ferguson.

[TEPaul]

The article said;

"Woods and Mickelson didn't draw up the plan, they simply were the strongest voices.

And until the PGA Tour goes through its first season under the revamped schedule, no one can be sure it's a bad idea.

If it is, blame them."

If it turns out to be a bad idea then go ahead and blame them, but I think Woods and Mickelson are right. There's too damn much PGA Tour golf now with truncated, lusterless fields, and that's not good. In the case of the PGA Tour schedule less probably is more.

[TEPaul]

Furthermore, all this TV sport in America is a total overload that has only served the purpose of breeding a generation of Americans who are a nation of out-of-shape couch-potatoes whose only extremity that is "in-shape" these days is their index fingers from constantly surfing 1,000 channels overloaded with too many TV sports.  

[PThomas]

I don't understand some of Fihcnem's moves

no longer having a tournament in Chicago every year that draws great crowds and Tiger every year?  even Tiger questioned that one...and don't get me started re not calling it the Western any more..

then there's the D.C. fiasco, the Harding Park situation, etc., etc.....

seems like both tour commissioners are making a lot of bad moves these days

[Dan Kelly]

Unorganized thoughts:

-- Would it be unforgivably cynical of me to suspect that Messrs. Woods and Mickelson had in mind the interests of exactly two players?

-- I would think the phrases "appearance fees" and "silly season" should have appeared somewhere in this column.

-- I wonder if the PGA Tour will advertise the reductions in its tournaments' contributions to local charities.

-- Is the Tour season too long and too dull?

Of course the Tour is too dull -- if it's a national television audience you want! They play the same format week after week after week, on essentially the same course week after week after week. I have three different fantasy-golf deals in progress, all based on Tour results -- and even I don't watch much of anything beyond the Majors and the TPC and the Tour Championship! Who could possibly care, outside the Quad Cities, who will win this week's John Deere tournament -- the namesake event of what my fantasy-golf friends and I derisively call the Tractor Pull Season.

If they'd shake it up a bit, playing various formats (and on some more interesting courses), the current-length season wouldn't be any too long.

[Bill Shamleffer]

I continue to hear this complaining that Chicago has been snubbed by the new schedule.  What about Indiana, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.  St. Louis currently has no PGA, Nationwide, LPGA, or Senior Tour Events.  The golf tournaments that have been held in St. Louis have usually been very successful.  Indianapolis and Minneapolis also have no PGA even currently.  These are all three deserving cities to have occasional PGA tournaments in their cities.

Are the Chicago complainers trying to say that Chicago is more than 3x deserving of a PGA tournament than are these other three cities?

In addition, this event is run by the WGA and benefits the Evans Scholarship.  All four of these cities produce Evans Scholars.  Finally, this event used to travel around the Midwest, so one cannot defend this change as a complete disregard for tradition.

I am not defending the new schedule and the final "playoff", nor am I disregarding the great golf fans that do live in Chicago.  However, I have not yet heard from the national press how nice it will be for the golf fans of St. Louis, Indianapolis and Minneapolis to at least have a quality golf event once every six years.  Also, I believe Chicago does have a Nationwide event.  This should be seen as an opportunity for the LPGA or the Senior Tour to possibly rotate and even every other year between Chicago and another Midwest city currently without an event on their tour schedule.  Or why not move the Western Am to Chicago for the years when the "Western Open" is outside of Chicago.  Regular participants of the Western Am may appreciate the change of pace.

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