From the Hearth: Excerpts of three conversations; first, Tim Rosaforte, author of Raising the Bar, on the direction of the PGA Tour and Tiger; next, Ray March, on Pebble Beach, the focus of many of his essays in his book, Two Bites of the Cherry; and finally, Gary Player, fresh from entertaining a group of youngsters at the behest of the brother of the president of South Africa. He got so worked up, he actually used the word "damn." (The questions on this last interview were not mine.)

There is a common thread. All are variations on a theme, an oldie but goodie: the root of all evil.

Tim Rosaforte

Looking back on [PGA Tour Commissioner] Tim Finchem's state of the game address, he kind of glossed over Tiger. It occurred to me that it might've been like listening to Colonel Tom Parker, but instead of touting Elvis, he's talking up the Jordanaires.

I think the issue is that Tim and the philosophy of the tour is that it's the tour first, and while they're happy and grateful to have Tiger around, especially as it relates to growing the game and going into these television negotiations, at the same time - and I think it's head in the sand thinking or at least head in the sand posturing - they're playing up the strength of the entire tour over the strength of this phenom who's created such a crossover in the game's popularity.

Let's face it: if golf has become the fourth major sport, it's not because of the PGA Tour, although that's part of it, it's really because of Tiger Woods. What he's done on the golf course, and what he represents.

Whether it's intended or not, these [World Golf Championship] events are squeezing the life out of established tournaments - Tucscon, the Texas Open, which goes back to the very beginnings of the tour. It's assuring them of never getting a top field.

Agreed. It's not only the World Golf Championships though it's this new television contract. It's only going to get more competitive. When they sign this [television] deal later in 2001for the 2003 season, you're going to see purses jump even higher than the 24 events that are at $4M or more this year. It's really become a meritocracy and there's a definite Darwin principle involved. No matter how long the Texas Open has been there, you're going to have a hard time keeping pace unless you can step up with the cash. There's good sides and bad sides to that. Obviously, if you're in one of those markets and you don't get Tiger and you don't have the purse, you don't get the field, there's a tremendous downside. From a big picture perception, which I think is what Tim Finchem and the tour has, that's how you grow the game. It's a survival of the fittest mentality.


. . .You're going to see purses jump even higher than the 24 events that are at $4M or more this year . . .It's a survival of the fittest mentality.


At one of Tiger's early appearances, I'll never forget a man standing next to me in a chef's outfit. He'd come straight from the restaurant. You had people saying, "I can't believe I'm at a golf tournament."

You were seeing people at golf tournaments that you never saw before, not only people in chef's outfits but younger people, people of color, kids with their hats on sideways and underwear showing, more African-American men and women; it was great to see. The Texas Open seemed to personify the mania. I remember how crazy and intense it was. I realized then how hard it would be for him to maintain the type of standard of play that he's maintained over the last two years with that type of media and fan attention.


In many ways Tiger's greatest achievement is that he's been able to maintain this standard with all this stuff going on around him.


I wasn't around for the beginning days of the Beatles but we compared it to that. Or Elvis. But I'd never been around any athlete that had that type. . .it was almost like one of these movies where the walls are closing in around you.

In many ways his greatest achievement is that he's been able to maintain this standard with all this stuff going on around him. The hardest thing for him sometimes is to get from the parking lot to the locker room without getting besieged. I know that goes with the territory and that's why Nike's paying him $100M, and that's why he has all those endorsements - it's part of the price you pay, you surrender your privacy, but at the same time to surrender it and play the game at a level that it's never been played before, I think, is a testimony to how strong he is mentally. -0-

Ray March

In "The Bastardization of Pebble," you write: "The Pebble Beach Golf Links is not some hallowed ground upon which it is an honor to walk. It is a brand. It is a commodity."

The thing is Pebble Beach has become a golf course, through a tremendous marketing program, that everybody feels they need to play. Now that's a hard thing to resist. I can't blame somebody if they feel they need to come out here and play that course. What obviously makes the course so attractive, in my opinion, is the setting. It's just an incomparable setting for golf. But it has become a commodity. They're just pushing people through as fast as they can. And, of course, they can't push them through very fast.

$325 [a round] if you're staying at The Lodge, $350 if you just roll up. Is it worth it?

No, of course it's not, but that again is one that you rationalize. If you've got an expense account and you're Bank of America taking Casa Palmero suites during the U.S. Open and then you know you're going to play that golf course, sure, it's worth it because that's not much money in regards to a good, fat expense account but it's a tremendous amount of money for a round of golf, period.

I'm reading: "If Pebble, or what is left of it, is to remain a classic course, there has to be an honoring of its original intent and design because someday it won't be the course it once was and no one will know the difference. In its place will be a false front, a sting operation and you won't even know you were stiffed."

Yes. That's because what takes place is that as the course evolves, and what I mean by that, that is - even the setting - it doesn't have the old feel that it once had. The architecture of the homes that are being built is changing. It doesn't have that old money smell about it, which I think it should've retained.


It doesn't have that old money smell about it, which I think it should've retained.


You play the first seven holes and now you're going to play No. 8 and you already know in your mind; most people who play Pebble Beach have a pretty good idea of what the course holds for them because they've seen it on television or perhaps they've read about it. So they get to the 8th hole and they don't even know that the tee placement has been changed just to make the hole a little easier and keep the flow of play going. It's not the same hole anymore when you start changing the tee boxes around. But what I'm saying is that they won't know that and that's a pity.

I almost hesitate to ask you about the fifth hole.

(Laughs) In Two Bites of the Cherry, there's a story called "Name of the Game." There was a family, Matthew and Mimi Jenkins, and I suppose you can probably tell that I'm a traditionalist in the sense of golf history and where we are going with our golf today. The [newly created] fifth hole at Pebble - my position on that was that it was purely a real estate deal. The Pebble Beach Company, in fact, did not actually make the entire purchase of that property once the heirs of Mimi Jenkins sold to the company. That also included Charles Schwab who, of course, everybody knows because of the television ads and stock brokerage. But what they did, they bought that piece of property. They subdivided it. They tore down all the old houses, the cottages, the home that was in there. Then they bring in Jack Nicklaus and he designs another self-proclaimed "great" hole, this one close to the edge of the bluff that overlooks Stillwater Cove.

You called it "awkward and anti-climactic, an uninspiring run-way strip…"

What that illustrates is that there's no sensitivity at Pebble Beach or among the staff there for its past. There's no honoring of the traditions that were there. This is something where they're out to make money, period. They want you to think that it's still remaining the same but it's changing.


There's no sensitivity at Pebble Beach for its past. . .no honoring of the traditions. This is something where they're out to make money, period.



Gary Player

You brought up your dissatisfaction of the younger players not playing around the world.

Any time a man is only playing golf just for money, I think that's a very sad state of affairs. Surely, when you play golf; it's such an integral part of our lives, it's done so much for us, are we going to say we are not going to play in a tournament just because it does not have any prize money? You know, Arnold, Jack and I used to go around the world playing in those World Cups, known as the Canada Cup then, for a $500 honorarium because we were proud to represent our countries. Now, you hear of guys who want to be paid to play in the Ryder Cup! They backed off very quickly when they suddenly found the press jumping on them.

Now you find them talking about the Presidents Cup, well, do I have to travel all that way to play in a match. Golf is give and take. You can't just be all take. You can't always just think of money. You've got to think of putting something into the game. . . I think we have an obligation, when we've taken so much out of it, particularly these young guys today who are getting hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of appearance money, they have an obligation to fulfill.

Is money ruining the game?

I never used to think so. I never used to think so at all. I was always saying the more money we could play for, obviously the better. But there's no question that money is ruining the game now.


There is no question money is ruining the game.

I'll give you an example. We had the biggest golf tournament in the world at Sun City a month ago. First prize was $2 million. Last prize was $150,000. Two first-class air tickets. Take the wives to the diamond mines, the gold mines, the game reserves and the beautiful beaches of South Africa. Anything they wanted, and you can't get these young guys to play. If I told Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Tom Watson, Hale Irwin, anyone who want to mention among the great players from the past that they could play for $2 million and have the chance to go to the game reserves, the diamond mines and gold mines, everyone of them would have done it. Now, it's an exception. Oh, it's too far. We had to travel 40 hours on a plane with five children and no disposable diapers, and now they play for $2 million and they say, "I'm going to have lunch with my granny, or something. I can't comprehend…"


We had to travel 40 hours on a plane with five children and no disposable diapers. . .


Do you have a great concern for the future of professional golf?

Very, very much indeed. They just had the big tournament in Australia. First prize a $1 million. I never wanted to be one of these guys they say was an old fart, but we never used to play for $1 million in a year. Now, okay, that was the case, but we loved the game so much, we wanted to compete and play and try to be the best in the world.


Don't you want to represent your country? Is it always a case of money?


Now there's a match play event with a $1 million first prize and you hardly see an American going and playing. I can't comprehend this. Ernie Els got on a plane and flew all the way. It's just as far from South Africa as it is from America to Australia. A million bucks! This is just going on and on. They talked about getting paid for the Ryder Cup. They backed off that, then it was a charitable donation. Then there is the Presidents Cup. I don't want to mention names, a young American saying, "If Tiger Woods goes, I'll go. If he doesn't go, then I doubt whether I will play." I mean what sort of attitude is that? Don't you want to represent your country? Is it always a case of money? I mean, you're playing for $3 to $4 million every damn week. I'm really perturbed, very, very perturbed about golf's future at the moment. -0-

© THR, 2001

Talking Points - Edition I - Ron Green
Talking Points - Edition II - Dr. Patrick Cohn
Talking Points - Edition III - Bradley S. Klein
Talking Points - Edition IV - Doug Sanders
Talking Points - Edition V - Curt Sampson
Talking Points - Edition VI - Geoff Shackelford
Talking Points - Edition VII - Bryan Gathright