Did it work? Did you understand it? Did you even care enough to try to understand it? These are questions thePGATour needs to address.
It really should not have been called the Web.com Tour Finals because half of the field was from thePGATour in the first place. I believe that the Web.Com company via paying thePGATour some $10 Million annually for the umbrella sponsorship demanded that their name be on this 4 tournament package of events, even if it was misnamed.
The Tour was not going to displace this $10 million sponsor and upset the first year of a 12 year sponsorship to make sure the fans understood the events. No way, but now that it is over and one year is under everyone’s belt, they need to tweak it to the point that only Web.Com players participate, or simply come up with a marketable name to enhance the events going forward.
Like when they changed the Senior Tour to call it the Champions Tour. That sounds better.
Come up with a better name, make it tour qualifying school only and it will work and be understandable going forward.
As for Scott, he failed last year, and again, this year, at The Open. He does have the Masters on his resume, but losing majors when you have the lead is always a bitter pill to swallow. As for Mickelson, only one major eludes him the U.S. Open—a tournament he has come in second a record 6 times. Pinehurst next year could be the time to conquer golf’s grand slam.
You may recall what we mentioned in last week’s blog that it would take a player who had already been in the major winners circle to win at Muirfield and it did—as Phil pointed out, it was probably the best pure round of golf he had ever played! To watch him share the moment with his family, well, that is why Phil is so endeared to the public—he is American golf’s man of the people. Congrats to Philly!
On a steamy day inMississippi,a veteran of nearly 20 years on tour, Woody Austin, regainedPGATour status with a dramatic win at the Sanderson’s Farm Championship in a 3-way playoff with Cameron Beckman and Daniel Summerhays. Austin, who is 49 had only Web.com status and without this win, he would be back on the minor league tour, instead he is headed to the Canadian Open, ThePGAnext month and the tournament of champions next January plus a two year fully exempt status on thePGATour. An emotionalAustin, not unlike Mickelson, has no problem showing his emotions to us all—we can relate to Woody who, in his quest to get on the tour, was a public school teacher and a bank teller-well now he can visit the teller with his $540,000 first place check. So happy for you, too, Woody, on this mid summer victory!
What a journey, what a victory for two men one who wasn’t sure he could win a certain major and the other who wasn’t sure he could win again—period. It is a great day in golf. July 21st, 2013.
