Losing The Golf War
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday October 16, 1992
IF YOU want to see Greg Norman this summer you could pay around $450 return airfare to Perth to watch the Heineken Classic at The Vines in January. Add the cost of five days' food and accommodation, and you can admire the talent and drawing power of the man who is still the most charismatic and famous Australian figure, not only on the world's fairways, but the world's sporting stages.
If your budget stretches to something more exotic, Norman can be seen enjoying the low-key fun and beckoning dollars of the Skins at Sanctuary Cove in February.
If you want to savour the true action for less dollars, then the Australian Masters at Melbourne's Huntingdale in February is your other option.
These will be Norman's only appearances in Australia this summer. He forsook the chance to play in the summer circuit's most prestigious tournament, the Australian Open at The Lakes in November, to spend the US Thanksgiving Day holiday with his family at home in Florida.
The Australian Golf Union's threatened legal action against Norman for his non-appearance in the Open has been withdrawn.
There has been accompanying criticism of Norman's minimal support of the summer tour here. Why couldn't he fly the family out for Thanksgiving? Norman could afford to buy an airline.
There is another side to it.
"Norman has been grossly unfairly criticised," Frank Williams, of International Management Group, Norman's managers, said this week.
"His wife told me at the US Masters she wanted to stay home for Thanksgiving just once. She's American and his children were born in the United States.
"Norman has supported the Australian tour for 18 straight years."
Williams detailed Norman's effect on the Australian circuit: the sponsors, the television ratings, the crowds, his example to other players.
Norman isn't the Australian golf tour. He's only one player and hasn't won here since a memorable last-round shoot-out with Nick Faldo in the 1990 Masters at Huntingdale.
The greatest tribute to him is that he brings non-golfers to tournaments in their thousands, and they have preferred to watch him going nowhere rather than see another player going to the top of the leader-board.
This summer's importance is that it will demonstrate how much Norman isn't Australian golf.
The Australasian circuit has taken a number of beltings before it has started. Japanese money has been withdrawn, so the two most lucrative tournaments - the $1.4 million Palm Meadows Cup and the $800,000 Vines Classic- have folded.
So has the $700,000 S x L Sanctuary Cove Classic. Those three events represented $2.9 million, or more than 40 per cent of the 1991-92 prize money. The Vines Classic is now the $250,000 Heineken Classic with Norman as the attraction, and his appearance fee will virtually equal the prize money.
To offset that, two other tournaments - the TPC championship and the Coolum Classic - have been restored, though at much reduced prize money, and the circuit is more than $1 million down on value since last summer.
Former US PGA champion Wayne Grady was quoted as pronouncing the circuit dead when the Japanese money was withdrawn. Australian PGA tour executive director Michael Duff said this week he had since spoken to Grady, who had claimed to have been misquoted.
"Shock" was Williams's explanation for the cause of Grady's supposed initial reaction.
Shock has been a not uncommon reaction in the wake of the Japanese withdrawal. Aftershocks have included the NSW Opens being cancelled and the Queensland Opens being played for virtually nothing.
Duff said the Japanese withdrawal had not been unexpected.
"It's like any sponsorship," he said, "it can't last forever and we were happy while it was there. That's part of evolution, and it's possible they'll come back at a later date."
Duff said Japan was also in recession, and television images of the high cost of golf development and lavishing entertainment on sponsors were not appropriate for their home viewers.
Said Williams: "Japan? Yeah, it was predictable. In all those years, $11 million was involved. We should say 'Thanks very much. The party's over'."
Peter Thomson, in some ways the conscience of the Australian circuit and the upholder of the game's standards, thought "thank you" should be said for different reasons.
"Over a short era it made a few players very wealthy," Thomson said. "It's healthy to have more events and smaller ones. They're a better training ground for players."
Should sponsorship be found for the imperilled Australian Matchplay title, the number of Australasian Order of Merit events will have been increased by one, despite the loss of prize money.
Of these, six will be played in New Zealand and Asia, compared with five in 1991-92.
So were the big-money tournaments a reflection of the high-flying 1980s -an aberration? Has the circuit returned to a more realistic and sustainable level?
Before addressing that, it's necessary to address the Norman factor. Successful tournaments have been run without him, but his presence on the tour has been continuous if intermittent.
Norman has been at nearly all the big tournaments - the Australian PGA, the Australian Open, the Johnnie Walker Classic and the Masters.
There's no question he's been the magnet for crowds, sponsors and television, and the strength and maturity of the circuit will be shown by how it copes with virtually an entire summer without him.
It was suggested to IMG's Australian managing director James Erskine a couple of years ago the tour might need to be "de-Normanised", and that Norman got paid for supporting the tour.
"He should be put in a psychiatric home. I'll sign the papers," Erskine said of anyone who would suggest the deNormanisation.
Thomson isn't suggesting it, but he welcomes the summer.
"That's a good word, 'de-Normanisation'," he said. "He's had a good run, a long run. Now there are other heroes."
Williams, of course, thinks Norman doesn't owe Australian golf a debt, it owes him the debt, and the IMG man is confident of the circuit's future.
This is encouraging because IMG now manages and promotes virtually every golf event on the eastern seaboard in partnership with the PGA Tour, and the Australian Golf Union in the case of the Open.
"The Australian circuit is very healthy," Williams said. "I doubt anyone else could do it, given the same population. It's absolutely incredible.
"If the United States supported the same population, you'd have perhaps one or two tournaments.
"I always thought the huge Japanese prize money was an effort to lift the prestige of events. Money alone doesn't do it. There are other factors like tradition and history. It's a trap we never fell into with the Masters."
Of course, IMG has the advantage of the payment and use of its own clients to appear, such as Norman and Faldo, but that's another story.
The appearance money story is one Williams was happy to discuss, however.
"Sponsors look at two things - ratings and crowds," he said. "The top guys can play in so many places. There's a $1 million tournament anywhere. The best offer gets them.
"Golfers are no different from anyone else. They feel insecurity. What if the bubble bursts? I know what I'd do."
Williams estimated about $3 million would be paid in appearance money this summer, equal to half the total prize money. He said a comparison of the way business had fared in the recession and the way the tour's sponsorship had been maintained was very favourable to golf.
"The other tours aren't a threat to Australia," he said. "It's got to be accepted the Australians are world players now. As long as the number of tournaments is kept at a sensible level, there is enough corporate support. We're at a realistic level."
Williams questioned the tour's move into Asia, however.
"The European tour is made up of the European communities. I can't believe Asia is part of Australasia, but who am I to say it isn't the way to go?"
Duff, as the PGA Tour's executive director, is the man charged with conducting the tour.
He is behind the Asian push, and is sensitive about the expansion.
"I'm not interested in the other tours," Duff said. "We do what we have to do. End of conversation."
It's only the start of the expansion, and already there have been problems
There was a preliminary skirmish last year when Duff criticised the European Tour for staging an event in Asia.
The tour-opening Perak Masters has started this week and has hit snags.
Veteran Australian golfer Stewart Ginn has questioned the attitude of Australian golfers who aren't present, saying they think they are too big to put something back into the game.
The misquoted Grady has answered a plea by flying out to bolster the field in next week's Malaysian Masters.
And tour dates will clash. The $150,000 Victorian Open, not part of the tour, will clash with the sanctioned Singapore PGA event.
Rising Victorian champion Robert Allenby will support the local tournament, thinking he has a debt to pay for support during his amateur days. He has been criticised for not supporting the official tour event.
The PGA's Singapore Open in March will clash with the Indian Open. Defending Indian Open champion Ginn said this week: "I can't believe they are clashing the Singapore Open with an Asian Order of Merit.
"It's stupid. We had two or three events drop out in Australia in January and it could have been played then."
The Asian Tour has threatened to insist its Australian members play in India.
Thomson said the Asian expansion was "a sensible move".
Duff is optimistic about the season. "We've got more events for the same amount of prize money," he said. "The money's more spread out and that's a better thing."
He said of the embattled State Opens: "Some smaller events have struggled by setting their sights too high. They should aim for secondary tour status and have seven or eight tournaments in the $50,000 to $100,000 range, and give the young guys a chance."
He said the NSW Open should be staged at places like Albury or Coffs Harbour.
Thomson, perhaps seeing the finite amount of money available, said of resurrecting Opens: "I'm not too enamoured of that. I'd prefer professional events."
The AGU is charged with looking after the national open and amateur championships and the imperilled matchplay.
The AGU's Tom Duiguid said of the State Opens: "Yes, we're concerned about the traditional events, but the State associations aren't fly-by-nighters and there's a good chance they'll come back."
Most of the celebrated Australian players are coming back for most of the major circuit events, and they'll never have a better time to prove Australian golf's appeal is not just Norman.
Peter Senior, Australia's most successful overseas golfer this year, has said he would play in Australia all year if the money were here.
Senior knows such money can never be available.
By March, it should be clear whether Australia's golfing elite can sustain a more modest but still lucrative tour, and whether it is sufficient to sustain them.
The latter is an equally important question. If they find the lure of the greater money now available in other parts of the world virtually all year more attractive, then sponsorship will be difficult.
The tour would then have the secondary but important function of just providing training fairways for the up-and-comers.
1991-92 SCHEDULE Malaysian Masters: $291,000 Perak Masters: $150,000 Singapore PGA: $150,000 Air New Zealand Shell Open: $181,000 South Australian Open: $20,000 Australian PGA: $250,000 Australian Open: $700,000 Johnnie Walker Classic: $1,000,000 Sanctuary Cove Classic: $700,000 Palm Meadows Cup: $1,400,000 Vines Classic: $800,000 Australian Matchplay: $200,000 Australian Masters: $703,000 New Zealand Open: $177,650 Total: $6,902,650 1992-93 SCHEDULE Perak Masters: $160,000 Malaysian Masters: 428,000 Singapore PGA: 208,000 Air New Zealand Shell Open: 219,000 South Australian Open: 200,000 Australian PGA: 500,000 Australian Open: $800,000 Johnnie Walker Classic: $700,000 Coolum Classic: $250,000 Players Championship: $300,000 Heineken Classic: $250,000 Australian Masters: $700,000 New Zealand Open: $260,000 Singapore Open: $600,000 Total: $5,825,000 Future of Australian Matchplay undecided; $150,000 Victorian Open not a tour event.
© 1992 Sydney Morning Herald
