This is not your father's WGA

    Writing from Fort Wayne, Indiana
    Thursday, August 29, 2013

    There was a time, not too many years back, when you could set your watch by the timing of the Western Golf Association’s three championships, and could drive to two of them in your sleep, so hardened was the pattern.
    The Western Open was on Cog Hill’s treacherous Dubsdread course around the Fourth of July. The Western Amateur was at Point O’Woods, just outside of Benton Harbor, Mich., in early August. And the Western Junior was in between, moving from site to site.
    That worked, and worked well, both in terms of player acceptance – the pros were pleased with Dubsdread, at least until they weren’t, the amateurs enamored with what Chick Evans once called “the peerless Point” – and in revenue. In some years, the Western Open sometimes cleared $2 million, all of it filling the coffers of the Evans Scholars Foundation, the WGA’s caddies-to-college charity wing.
    But times change. On the amateur side, crowds at the Point dwindled after the grand era of Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard and Tiger Woods ended, and the club, which made money the great triumvirate of parking, admission and concession sales, began to ask the WGA for a site fee. After a year of that, the WGA took the Western Amateur back to its Chicago roots, establishing a rotation of metropolitan clubs that was amended this year for a jaunt to the Alotian Club, the Augusta Nationalesque spot just outside of Little Rock, Ark. Jordan Niebrugge, a Wisconsin lad of whom much more will be heard, emerged victorious.
    The emergence of the PGA Tour’s playoffs, which, as longtime readers will recall, the WGA was shoved into, has proven to be a boon for the organization. Leave aside that BMW, even while changing the Western Open’s name, has proven to be a far more worthwhile sponsor than Cialis, both from an image standpoint and from the marketing angle. Other benefits are mush more tangible.
    BMW has also filled the WGA’s coffers, both directly and indirectly. The automaker sponsors another Evans Scholarship every time a player makes an ace in what is now called the BMW Championship, and the move to the playoff season – when the tournament was played outside Chicago, at least – has returned bigger net results than ever to the operation.
    The lesson of the excursions to Bellerive in 2008 and Crooked Stick last year, where the BMW drew massive crowds – Sunday at Crooked Stick attracted about 45,000 people, compared to 49,000 at Dubsdread for seven days the year before – has not been lost on Western Golf’s leaders, from boss John Kaczkowski and tournament impresario Vince Pellegrino to the volunteer directors who wear green coats. Paraphrasing bank robber Willie Sutton, the lesson is this: Go where the money is.
    That’s why Dubsdread is in the WGA’s rear-view mirror and Conway Farms Golf Club is straight ahead. The last few weeks, Pellegrino has been looking at maps of the course and looking for more room for corporate hospitality, which goes for anywhere from $18,000 to $300,000 – the latter granting the ability to use the clubhouse for the week, and that’s spoken for. Suites weren’t nearly as valuable at Cog Hill, because there was more supply than demand.
    What’s more, advance ticket sales are up. If as many come to Conway Farms for the week as they did to Crooked Stick, it will be crowded, and that’s a problem the WGA would love to have. And have again in 2015, when, barring flood or famine, the tournament will come back to Conway.
    The pattern now seems set. Odd-numbered years somewhere in Chicago in a moneyed neighborhood – that likely leaves out the south and southwest suburbs – and even-numbered years out of town. Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village, Colo., just outside of Denver, is next week’s destination. In 2016, it’s expected Harding Park Golf Course, the ultra-tough municipal course in San Francisco, will be the host, whether or not BMW extends its contract to sponsor the Western beyond next year.
    Ticket sales in Denver have just opened and are boffo so far, boosted by a TV spot that includes John Elway, who was president of Cherry Hills when the 2014 deal was struck, and Peyton Manning. Nobody’s ever heard of those guys in Denver.
    All of this means more Evans Scholars at a time when educational costs are going nowhere but up. This autumn, two scholars are attending Notre Dame, the first time in over a half-century that the WGA and ND, which has no fraternities, have collaborated.
    But wait, there’s more. Many WGA staffers and directors are here in Fort Wayne this week for the Hotel Fitness Championship, the first of four tournaments in the web.com playoff series, a.k.a. the new version of PGA Tour School. Kaczkowski, having created the Match Play Challenge and Green Coat Gala, wanted to expand the WGA’s tournament slate, and this fills the bill.
    Thursday’s first round at Sycamore Hills Golf Club, a Jack Nicklaus design in a development with homes almost the size of San Simeon, was better attended than might have been expected for a tournament in a small city with a former Masters and Western Open winner – Trevor Immelman – as the biggest name. But the circus is in town, and the 2,000 car parking lot was more than half full by late in the morning, with more people coming in. Scott McCarron’s 8-under-par 64 brought him a one-stroke lead and matched the course record.
    If hanging the WGA shingle out at Sycamore Hills means a few more Scholars for the next academic year, on top of the publicity for the program, the goal will have been met. And after Sunday night, the next stop is Conway Farms, where today the welcome sign went up. Next week, the welcome mat will be rolled out.
    – Tim Cronin