PGA Tour comes back to Washington DC, this time with Tiger Woods

So, what's your call for best place to play? I'm not a big Congressional fan, nor am I much into Avenel. I guess RTJ is close by, but none of those three really excites me. Bulle Run? That other place they played the Senior Open a few years back? There has to be some course for this event.

My guess is the tournament will be played at on the new Greg Norman course at Lansdowne Resort just 25 miles from downtown DC in the Northern Virginia suburbs. I can't see them starting this new association with Tiger Woods with a 1 year 'hit & run' at Congressional, especially on such short notice. Avenel is well into the permitting phase of construction upgrades. Bulle Rock is half an hour north of Baltimore and besides, it is already hosting the LPGA Championship in June.

Len Shapiro, the golf beat writer for the Washington Post says that it looks like Congressional will step up to the plate and host this year & next. However, they have no interest in having an annual Tour stop. They will host the 2011 US Open and that is more their target - the occasional major championship. Apparently the renovation at Avenel will include major changes to that course too. Look for it as the front-runner to host in 2009 and beyond. I wouldn't be surprised if Tiger Woods has some input for the re-design of the golf course too.

Brian Hewitt, Golf Channel talking head, says that Andrews Air Force Base may hold the tournament. Right. I say there is virtually no way a military installation will host 30-40,000 people a day with all that security risk, especially as this is the base for Air Force One. I pass by one of the gates nearly every day and on a day when there is a heightened security risk, there is an incredible traffic back-up from the normal influx of approved traffic. I could just imagine how bad that would be with 20,000 vehicles coming onto the property. And besides, the AAFB courses are not even close to worthy of that level of play in length, layout and conditioning.

Is this the beginning of the Tiger tour ? Much has been written about the fact that there are two PGA tours right now,the very successful events Tiger plays in and the rest. And maybe Tiger feels he isn't really getting paid the kind of scratch he needs to change the world. And maybe he figures a Tiger tour with him and every other top player guaranteed to show up would be attractive to TV and sponsors. And if they got rid of the marginal players and marginal tournaments and pooled the money into about 15 tournaments they could play for 10 million a week. He could revive the TPA ( Tournament Player's Association ) and get rid of the overhead of a lot of empty suits residing in splendor at Ponte Vedra Beach. IMG couldn't be thinking this way could they ? Nah.

Provocative thoughts there, OS. No doubt IMG would do it in a heartbeat, but I don't think Woods would sanction it. He's just not that kind of guy. Especially since Finchem sucks up to him on every big decision anyway. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when they have their meetings!

Oliver Sudden,

Several questions.

Who would be the "top players" in this elitist league?

Who would be the "marginal players" relegated to the hinterlands?

How could anyone guarantee that all the "stars" would show up for all the elite events?

Playing only fifteen tournaments a year would reduce golf's popularity even further than it is already.

How successful would a thoroughbred race track meeting be if only graded stakes winners were allowed to run and the race course was only open two days per month?

Also, there would be no incentive for aspiring pros to continue to aspire, since there would be no possibilty to become a first-time winner on the big show.

No way Woods does it now. If anything, it sounds like he might take over the Tour inside of 10 years with new Tiger-events.

It's pretty funny that Beem & Faxon are bitching about this new tournament being an invitational - meaning limited field of 105-120 instead of 144-156. Perhaps they'd prefer to have no tournament at all. Spoiled brats.

very informative post. Looking more to something like this