Marana, Ariz. – In case you haven’t had the chance to pore over the latest Nielsen television ratings, golf fans may find it interesting to note that last weekend’s final round of the Nissan Open scored 31 percent higher than last year’s tournament. In the last half hour, the playoff battle between Phil Mickelson and eventual winner Charles Howell III registered a 5.4 rating and a 10 share nationally.
And why is that important? Because the Los Angeles event, which also had a leaderboard that included other luminaries like Ernie Els and Vijay Singh and Rich Beem, took place without the presence of one Eldrick (Tiger) Woods.
You know, kind of like The International.
Which was why, days after the Nissan, there was a great deal of talk about the late, lamented event at Castle Pines Golf Club, which bit the dust two weeks ago in part because of an inability to find a title sponsor.
That was a problem borne, tournament officials said, because of low television ratings – both circumstances, the sponsorship and the ratings, were dependent on Woods’ participation.
That has been a common complaint from the myriad PGA Tour events in which the world’s top-ranked player doesn’t participate, but some argue otherwise.
“You’d have to be an idiot not to want Tiger at your event, but all those tournament directors saying that ought to just keep quiet. The more they talk about it, the worse it gets,” Jack Nicklaus said on the eve of the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship.
“Tournaments run their course, things change,” said Nicklaus, who designed Castle Pines. “Am I sorry to see it go? Absolutely. Does it send a good message about things like sponsorship? Absolutely not. But it is what it is. (International founder) Jack Vickers is a principled guy, and if what happened didn’t fit those principles, I respect what he did.”
The Nissan ratings were also noted by Woods’ camp.
“It’s unfortunate that in the aftermath of it, it was portrayed that The International failed because they couldn’t get a sponsor because they couldn’t get Tiger – there are a lot of successful tournaments out there where he doesn’t appear,” Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, said Wednesday. “I just think that was very unfair to Tiger.”
Other star players, including Mickelson, have indicated it’s unfair of tournament directors to suggest their chances for survival depend on the participation of certain players. Davis Love III, a two-time winner of The International and a longtime member of the PGA Tour’s policy board, said the biggest problem the local event had was finding a sponsor willing to spend money for an event in Colorado.
“There was no sponsor for Denver. There were sponsors who would have come on, but they didn’t want to be in Denver. It didn’t work for them for one reason or another,” said Love who added that The International’s previous success eventually began to work against it.
“It was unique, and sometimes unique is harder to sell. The International was more like a club event, trying to be like the Masters and all that,” he said. “Jack Vickers has wanted to do things his way, and while in the long run, he may have been better served with a different format or a different course, he pushed every tournament on the tour to do a better job. I told him a few years ago: ‘What did Wachovia do? When they started their tournament, they sent seven guys to Castle Pines to see what you did and then they one-upped you on everything.’
“It’s like the NBA and Las Vegas trying to get a franchise; they hold the All-Star Game there, but the league tells them, ‘If you want us to come back here, you have to build a better building.’ Well, Jack built the building, but everyone has passed him by with better ones, which is unfortunate.”
Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
