Let me be the first to admit that of all the golfers in contention this past Sunday at the Masters, I was the least excited about the prospect of Charl Schwartzel winning. I didn’t really know who he was, didn’t really care, and his storyline was nowhere near as good as Adam Scott, Jason Day, Tiger Woods, KJ Choi, Luke Donald, or any of the other players who made a charge for the green jacket.
But, despite the fact that Schwartzel winning was the most anti-climactic finish the Masters that was possible, he was the one who made the golf shots down the stretch, amazingly birdied the last 4 holes in succession, and won his first major. Good for him, indifferent for the sport of golf. Schwartzel’s victory did, however, continue a run of International players winning majors on a pace that has previously been unprecedented. Prior to last week’s Masters tournament much was made about the resurgence of European/International players in the world golf rankings, and countries like South Africa were mentioned for the success of their young golf stars.
As part of these TV segments, a few international players were interviewed to offer their opinion. Several of them, Lee Westwood and Rory Mcilroy included, offered good commentary regarding the quality and talent of the young international players. Others, such as Ian Poulter, chose to essentially mock the downfall of Tiger Woods and declare that international players were no longer “intimidated” by Woods (more on the stupidity of that statement later)*. With Schwartzel’s victory at the Masters this past weekend, the momentum being garnered by the International players only seems to be increasing.
In fact, it took only 2 days following Schwartzel’s victory, for the South African Golf Tour to throw down the gauntlet and directly challenge the PGA Tour and Tiger Woods to a fight. Today, the Commissioner of the “Sunshine” tour, Gareth Tindall, announced that the tour will host the richest golf tournament in the world next year, A new $10 million World Golf Championship. Tindall boldy proclaimed it the start of, “a world tour” and followed up by stating this was “the most significant thing that has happened to South African golf in its history.”
“The significance of what we’ve done is potential, and the U.S. tour might **** me for this, but essentially we are starting the world tour,” Tindall said. “It’s been a matter of time. I think what we’ve done could potentially create the impetus to start a world tour because Australia are certainly going to do what we’ve done, and Europe are going to have to do what we’ve done.”
Not satisfied with that little salvo directed at the PGA Tour, Tindall then took dead aim at Tiger Woods and his charity golf tournament the Chevron Challenge, currently scheduled on a weekend that the Sunshine World Championship is looking at for its new tournament. Here’s what Tindall had to say about that.
“They will have to move it (the Chevron Challenge), unfortunately for them,” he said. “They moved the Tiger Chevron Challenge to the same date as the Nedbank Golf Challenge without any consultation so I suppose it’s a bit of payback time. They need to move that date.”
And here’s where the offside flag went up. Gareth Tindall is now running down the field by himself and there is nobody around him. Soon he will look up and realize that he is all alone.
What a stupid thing to say. What a dumb way to try and capitalize on the Masters victory by his South African countryman Charl Schwartzel. To simultaneously pick a fight with the biggest and most lucrative golf tour in the world (the PGA Tour), and the most recognizable athlete on the planet (Woods). Now, I’m not the biggest Tiger Woods fan in the world (more of a Phil fan myself), and I do think that certain tours, such as the European tour, have made great strides in the past few years to bridge the gap between the money you can make playing golf in America and that which is available overseas, but lets get real for a minute. There is a better way to increase the exposure for your “Sunshine” tour and to grow the game of golf internationally.
To begin with, you could schedule your new tournament on a weekend that doesn’t directly interfere with Woods’ event. Hell, you could even work with Woods and his people to let them know that you are willing to do this, in return for his attendance in South Africa for the World Golf Tournament. There’s a thought. Make sure the guy who gets the most press coverage of any athlete on earth is at your tournament. By doing this you may not only get Woods, but other prominent golfers who have committed to play in Woods’ event, who will not be at your event if the two conflict. Tiger Woods has made a lot of people in the golf world millions of dollars and not everyone is going to forget that. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, Mr. Tindall, but golf is somewhat of an “old boys” network ya know? You scratch my back I’ll scratch yours kind of thing. There are a lot of professional golfers in the world today who built their houses with Tiger Woods made money. If you make all of them choose between his charity event and your shiny new golf tournament, not all of them are going to come running down to South Africa.
Second to the business reasons that Tindall’s position is absurd, is the really poor quality of his language. He sounds like schoolkid challenging someone to a fight. As an ambassador to the sport of golf, and representative of golf in South Africa, you sound like a moron Gareth. Like a hopped up Rugby player who’s trying to impress a girl. You think that because Woods is down right now and has suffered through having his moral transgressions dragged through the press for a year and a half that you can just pile on and utilize his situation to your advantage. Again – don’t be an idiot. Not only does that reflect very poorly on you, but it calls into question your business savvy. The Tiger Woods event is c0-sponsored by Chevron. A small oil company you may have heard of. My guess is that Chevron is not interested in being called out by you, and being told that their golf tournament has to move. Just my opinion. I’m also guessing when I say if it wanted to, Chevron could purchase the Sunshine Tour in its entirety, and just cancel it so as to avoid any conflicting dates. I don’t think that Chevron would want to do this, but why don’t you challenge them to a few more games of Chicken and let’s find out.
It would seem to me that Gareth Tindall has been drinking out of the Charl Schwartzel cup a little too much, and that cup runneth over. It was a good win for Charl and for South Africa, but it did not signify that South Africa is now the center of the golfing universe. The Masters will still be held in Augusta Georgia next year. In the world of golf the United States is still #1, and Europe is closing. The rest of the world is making progress, but not a threat to the US or Europe at the moment. Gareth would do well to apologize for trying to use the momentum that Charl created to overthrow the golfing universe, and go back to building exposure for his tour by inviting the best players in the world to play in his events. Challenging them and telling them what to do likely isn’t the answer.
*And now, if I may, back to Poulter’s statements last week about not being intimidated anymore by Tiger Woods. What am I supposed to think about that Ian? You didn’t win majors when you were intimidated by Tiger, and you aren’t winning them now that you aren’t afraid anymore. How exactly does your level of fear of one golfer have anything to do with your progression as a golfer? In his prime, Tiger may have offered you a nice excuse not to win a major championship (or meaningful PGA tour event), but Tiger hasn’t played well for years. You’ve had more than enough time to nab a major championship (or meaningful PGA Tour event) and you haven’t. Don’t talk **** about a guy who’s won 14 major tournaments and just about every other title in the world, when you’re standing there with no majors. The only thing that you’ve accomplished as a professional golfer is that you’ve won a few times on the European tour and gotten very rich playing golf all over the world. Do you know who you should thank for that?
** I really hate defending Woods this much, because for years he’s been basically nothing more than a golf machine and a selfish prick, but seriously, he got his in the press and is still paying for what he did wrong outside the sport. None of what’s going on today inside of golf should include trying to exploit and take down the guy who took the game to levels it’s never seen before. Golf should rehabilitate Woods and hope in vain that he can get back on his game and get the $ flowing back into the game that once was. The cannibalism of the game by its own members and ambassadors is really ridiculous.
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