The Bitter End

Ric Clarson, the Tour's vice president of tournament business affairs, says the demise of Pleasant Valley was due to "an unfortunate set of circumstances surrounding sponsorship and scheduling." According to Clarson, this is the first time since 1986 that a tournament with "an unencumbered date" has been dropped from the schedule, and he insists it's not the start of a trend in which small-market, small-money tournaments are abandoned to make room for bigger events.

Still, the fate of the CVS Classic, plus the addition of the World events and the hefty increase in the amount of prize money that tournaments must put up to satisfy the Tour, have raised questions about the future of some events. For now, the organizers of the smaller stops are taking the party line and repeating the mantra of the endangered: The Tour is deep enough to support two tournaments in one week. It will have to be if the sponsor-less Tucson Open, for example, is to survive. Although tournament director Judy McDermott has a contract with the Tour through 2002, starting next year Tucson will be played opposite the Feb. 24-28 Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship, a World event to be held at La Costa for the 64 top-ranked players.

"We don't want to play opposite [the match play], but the Greg Normans of the world have never come to Tucson anyway," says McDermott, who adds that she's in negotiations with a new title sponsor to replace Chrysler, which dropped out after this year's tournament. "In '92 Lee Janzen won our tournament, and nobody knew who Lee Janzen was. So we'll get players like that, plus a few guys like John Daly, who isn't in the top 64 in the World Ranking right now."

September's B.C. Open not only takes place in a small market (Endicott, N.Y., 75 miles from Syracuse), but also is one of the few Tour events without a title sponsor. "It's tough to have a corporate sponsor come in when you're competing against college football," says tournament director Mike Norman. "The majority of the title sponsors are looking for TV ad time."

It will only get tougher for the B.C., which from 2000 through 2002 will be played opposite the British Open. (The Deposit Guaranty is scheduled opposite the British in '99.) Texas Open tournament director Tony Piazzi can relate. His event, which he admits hasn't always been a picture of health, will be played at the same time as the biggest competition in golf in '99. "We'd certainly rather not be competing against the [Sept. 24-26] Ryder Cup," Piazzi says. "But we think there's going to be a lot of attention on golf that week, and we're going to do everything we can to fashion a silk purse out of the date."

Piazzi has reason for optimism. The Texas Open has a contract through 2000 and a new title sponsor in Westin Hotels and Resorts. "We've been challenged by the Tour to elevate our performance," he says, "and I think we're in a position to do that. We're much closer to the center of the ring than we were a year ago."

Is the Tour deep enough to support these tournaments? Parity is undeniable, what with players such as Trevor Dodds (Greensboro), J.P. Hayes (Westchester), Joe Durant (Western) and Olin Browne (Hartford) picking up winner's crystal already this year. Fans on-site may not mind, but corporate America isn't big on parity. Corporate America wants the whopper TV ratings, and if Tiger isn't playing—much less anyone else in the top 64—odds are other sponsors will follow the lead of CVS, which could spell DOA for the Tour's second-tier towns. "I think the message is loud and clear," says Mingolla. "If you're a small-market tournament, you're done. The B.C. Open, Milwaukee, Texas—watch out. The Tour has to create dates, and I don't know how it can do it without squeezing out the little guys."

Clarson said that many players weren't sad to see the Sutton stop dropped from the schedule. While Mingolla's friends and the native New Englanders on the Tour were upset, the four players on the nine-man Tour policy board—Jay Haas, Tom Lehman, Davis Love III and Mark O'Meara—approved the Tour's position.

That fact was not lost on those who have supported the Sutton tournament. "Look at a guy like Love," says Tour veteran Billy Andrade, who was born in Fall River, Mass., and attended the tournament as a child. "He went along with this, but he has never even been here. [In fact, Love played at Pleasant Valley in 1986 and '88.] They looked at the schedule, saw what was weak and killed it. As a fan and as a guy who grew up around here. I think that sucks."

The final Pleasant Valley field included the Tour's leading antagonist, Mac O'Grady. A passionate ally of the Mingollas and a thorn in Finchem's side, the eccentric O'Grady agreed to be interviewed by SI last Friday night, but only after he chased one of his playing partners, Michael Christie, a Tour player from Greenville, S.C., down the clubhouse steps and challenged him to a fist fight. (Christie and O'Grady had been arguing on the course.) Without coming to blows with Christie, O'Grady returned for the interview, during which he fired a series of shots at Finchem and the Tour, all in defense of Mingolla and the good people of Sutton.