Golf Question of the Week: Is the PGA TOUR Season Too Long?

http://www.worldgolf.com/media/preview/13863.jpgRegardless of whether you’re a fan of any of the “big four” professional team sports – the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA or NHL – each of these leagues has one good thing going for them: a discernible season structure, where virtually anyone with a pulse can give you at least a general idea of when it starts, and when it ends.

So when I see that, amid the PGA TOUR’s “silly season,” six of the world’s top 10 players are competing this weekend in the Target World Challenge for a $5.75-million prize pool … Well, not only does a competition for this kind of cabbage tell me this isn’t quite a “silly” competition, but it’s a reminder that a) the 2007 season hasn’t really ended (or has it?), and b)for many of the world’s best, the Target Challenge is a pre-holiday tune-up for the start of a 2008 PGA TOUR season that’s only three weeks away.

Which leads into this week’s “Golf Question of the Week”:

Is the PGA TOUR season too long? For my money, it’s waaaaay too long.

Now, I like what the TOUR has done with its schedule to make sure that each month of that “peak” season has at least one major/high-profile event (The Masters in April; THE PLAYERS in May; U.S. Open in June; British Open in July; PGA Championship in August; and Ryder Cup/President’s Cup and FedEx Cup playoffs in September). But do we really need to have a 3 ½-month buildup to Augusta? And while the FedEx Cup is supposed to bring some general closure to the season in September, why is it nevertheless followed by six TOUR events that take its official event season well into November?

Maybe the PGA TOUR can share some ideas with its friends in NASCAR, where the grumblings about the length of its own February-to-November season are starting to grow a bit louder. But as sure as death, taxes and Angelina Jolie on the front page of a tabloid … so long as corporate sponsorship dollars rule the day, I’m not holding my breath for radical changes coming any time soon, in either sport.

But I can still gripe about it – and ask you, dear readers, what you think. Let us know!

Categories

Golf Question of the Week   Golf   Blog