My latest Sympatico column, which went live on Friday, discusses the concept of a Champions Tour event in Montreal and its chances for success. Here’s the first few paragraphs:

It has been eight years since the golf circuit for old guys – then called the Senior Tour, now referred to as the Champions – has been part of the Canadian landscape.

It died a quiet death after sponsor AT&T pulled out. Hardly anyone seemed to care and it disappeared with little protest. Every so often someone would ask whether the event could be resurrected by the Royal Canadian Golf Association. And every so often someone would be told there was no interest.
Which is why this week’s announcement of a Champions Tour event in Montreal starting this July, complete with $4.7-million in taxpayers’ dollars, is so curious. Does anyone care to watch vaguely competitive former golfing greats like Mark O’Meara, Ben Crenshaw, and Fred Couples play for a $1.8-million purse? David Skitt thinks so.
It was Skitt’s sports marketing company, Synchro Sports, that conceived the Champions Tour idea after discussions to bring a Nationwide Tour event to Montreal stalled in 2006. Since 2004, Synchro ran a successful Canadian Tour event in the city, but Skitt says sponsors yearned for something more than 5,000 fans over the four days of the tournament. With a PGA Tour event outside the financial capabilities of the firm, they came up with the concept of running a Champions Tour event.
“We wanted to present a different opportunity to our sponsors,” Skitt explains. “Our sponsors were really interested in corporate hospitality and when you’re selling an experience like the ability to play with Gary Player, well that’s a real consideration.”

You can read the remainder here.

Given the $4.7-million that a Quebec-based sports marketing agency managed to draw out of the Federal and Provincial governments for a Champions Tour event in Montreal, I thought it was worthwhile to ask Royal Canadian Golf Association (Golf Canada?) executive director Scott Simmons whether or not the events the organization ran benefited from tax dollars. Turns out they don’t, and Simmons wasn’t pleased when hearing about the Montreal tournament snaring all that government cash when his organization has regularly been turned down.

BTW, can anyone explain the link between the comments made by Quebec provincial ministers linking their cash to the 2016 Olympics? I’m still baffled by that one.

Here’s his e-mail response to the question: 

The RBC Canadian Open and CN Canadian Women’s Open have both applied for government funding in the past and will continue to do so in the future.  Any funding that we have applied for has been specifically for the enhancement/improvement of the Championships and focused on generating additional visitors (“Tourists”) to attend the event.

In 2009, the RBC Canadian Open received $300K as part of the Celebrate Ontario 2009 grant through the Ontario Ministry of Tourism.  The money was specifically earmarked to enhance the onsite Concert Series, Spectator Village expansion, site service improvements (security, signage, fencing, washrooms, paramedics).

As well, through the Ontario Tourism Event Marketing Program the event received $50,000 to enhance marketing efforts and reach new customers, specifically out of province and internationally.  The funds helped to enhance the overall spectator experience on site and expand the reach of the Championship’s media plan over and above our tournament marketing plan. 

These are not considered “grants” (i.e. with no expectations attached) as they are programs that require a formal application, planned spending of funds and projected results, along with a formal detailed recap report following the event.   The funds received could not go towards bottom line to fund operations, rather the funding was meant to be spent over and above our operational budget on event enhancements to attract more people from a wider region, generating tourism spending.  We need to submit applications for funding on an annual basis – we’ve not received any term based grants (ie. Multi-year) as noted in yesterday’s announcement.

Having said that, we’re very interested in the government funds made available as part of the Champions Tour announcement and will look to explore what it could mean (as far as setting precedent) for potential funding of the men’s and women’s Open championship.  As you know both events make a significant economic and charitable impact in our host communities and as the NSO, the idea of funding being tied to Olympic rationale is very much of interest if that plays into the government’s future funding decisions.

Which way to Rue-Sainte Catherine? Champions Tour golfer Peter Jacobsen, in Montreal yesterday for the introduction of a new Champions Tour event, asks about locating evening entertainment in the city.

I spent some time on the phone yesterday with David Skitt, the founder of Synchro Sports in Montreal, which formally announced the Champions Tour event yesterday.Skitt will be the tournament director for the event.

“I don’t know how you found out about it, but nice job,” he joked at the end of the call, referencing the story I did on the event a couple of weeks back.

So here are the salient details:

• Discussion on a Champions Tour event started in 2006.
• $4.7 million in funding, split between the Quebec and Federal governments over three years.
• Expected to generate more than $22-million in revenue for the region.
• Being played at Le Fountainebleau, a ClubLink course in Montreal. But Skitt expects it to move to different venues — and is looking at some classic courses in Montreal. They need to be about 6,800 yards long.
• Skitt plans to lobby for players, including Fred Couples, Lee Trevino (who I thought was basically retired), Greg Norman, Gary Player and others.
• He would not speculate on how many spectators would show up.
• There is a French telecast for Quebec, while the English telecast will be time-delayed by Golf Channel.
• Only one sponsor’s exemption for a Canadian player — at least that’s how it appears to Skitt. One Quebec player will gain access to the field through a qualifier. There are other exemptions, but they’d go to former champions, etc. Strikes me that Richard Zokol, Dave Barr, or Jim Rutledge would seem like obvious choices. Or what about a Quebec amateur like Graham Cooke?
• Synchro had run the Canadian Tour event in Montreal for the past six years — and hopes to do so this year, though on a lesser scale than in the past.

I do have some questions:

• In the announcement, Quebec provincial ministers involved in the funding cited golf’s position as an Olympic sport in 2016 as a reason for pumping cash into the event. But there’s a better chance that some of the golfers in the field in Montreal will be in a seniors’ home than in Brazil in 2016. I guess I just don’t see the connection.
• Skitt said budgets for the event involved a conservative number of spectators. He wouldn’t say how big or small that number was.
• No title sponsor was named, and that was part of the reason for the need for government cash. But Skitt said he’s close to landing a sponsor. Will they then give part of the gov’t cash back? (Yeah, I know, pretty unlikely…)
• I asked Skitt about getting gov’t cash for a one-week tournament when the economy is delicate and all levels of government are running deficits. He pointed to the Olympic thing, as well as the interest this will bring to golf in Quebec. I hope the event attracts more people to the game, but I can’t say I’m convinced.
• Would Greg Norman really come to play in Quebec? He really only plays a couple of Senior Champions Tour events each year.

One of the things that struck me was the insistence that the players are the Champions Tour are more fan-friendly than those on the PGA Tour. Why would that be? After all, these are the same guys that graduated from the PGA Tour and no one can tell me Hale Irwin was a lot of fun to be around back in the day. The suggestion the Champions Tour is the male equivalent of the LPGA Tour is kind of hard to fathom.

That said, there are some interesting potential players. Tom Lehman, Fred Couples, and Corey Pavin and are all on the Champions Tour this year, though Lehman may still play PGA Tour events and Couples’  back provides no guarantees. Still, the likes of Nick Price, Mark O’Meara and Ben Crenshaw make the event potentially intriguing. Hell, I’d like to sit down with Crenshaw and just talk about his golf design efforts.

Hopefully Synchro can pull this off despite my concerns. By all accounts they’ve run a top-notch CanTour event in Montreal, arguably the best on the tour. There’s no reason to think they can’t make that translate onto the Champions Tour.

Last week I interviewed Rai Sahi, the majority shareholder and CEO of ClubLink Corp., the corporate golf giant in Ontario and Quebec. I was writing a profile of Sahi for Golf Canada magazine, and when transcribing the interview, I found this little nugget of news when asking Rai what he brings to ClubLink and where the company was headed:

Sahi: I spend one day a  week at ClubLink. What I bring is at the strategic level. I want to help the growth of golf and we’re trying to figure out where we go. Do we form a strategic alliance in the U.S.? I’m reviewing what is happening in the U.S. Florida could be a market that is an extension of ClubLink. Members from Montreal and Toronto come to Florida and it could be a reason for them to join.

We had some discussion in B.C. But there are no other cities like Toronto and Montreal. The other [Canadian] cities are big enough. We might do it differently. It could become a national entity. But that’s not our primary focus, but we have some conversations. The core of the business will remain the GTA.

Interesting to note Sahi spends a fair bit of time in the winter in Florida — and I’m sure some courses there could be picked up for a song. I was also told today that ClubLink owns a U.S. course — in Virginia. Who knew?

I found former PGA Tour winner Richard Zokol’s comments on the groove battle to be fascinating. He posted it in the comments section, but I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to see it. Zokol writes:

It was a sad day and turning point for golf in 1993 when the USGA, R&A with the PGA Tour settled the Ping lawsuit out of court. We all have seen and heard how the game has evolved negatively during the out of control technology advancements in equipment over the past 10 years. Most PGA Tour members wanted the USGA, R&A and PGA Tour at arm’s length to fight to control the rules of the game with the PGA Tour backstopping the USGA & R&A. Everyone in golf knew this case would have a long lasting effect by means of legal precedent. Now its significance is showing up in many ways (like longer golf courses). The Ping settlements lead to the start of the manufactures having their way in the game which caused the out of control technology boom in: club grooves, golf ball development, size of drivers and CORE of driver faces, etc., the combined sum has negatively changed the direction of the game. This legal precedent left the USGA, R&A and PGA Tour in a submissive position.

At the time, it was a real game of chicken… to see who would blink first. The USGA, R&A, PGA Tour absolutely bailed out a week before the court date. There was huge risk for the PGA Tour given the deep pockets of Ping and the downside if a judgment went against the Tour. Leonard Decof, Ping’s attorney was ruthless and put huge fear on the Tour and players.

I recall Dick Farris, my playing partner at the AT&T Pro-Am, and then Chairman of the PGA Tour Policy Board was furious that the Tour didn’t fight it out in court. If I recall correctly, the suit claimed damages for $100MM against the PGA Tour. If a judgment went in favour of the plaintiff (Ping) the court could award “treble damages”, a typical judgement for willful conduct. A judgment against the PGA Tour for $300MM would bankrupt the PGA Tour. In the early 90’s as it is today, 100% of PGA Tour player’s pension fund sits is in general funds in the PGA Tour. It is NOT government protected and exposed to any liability.

Part of that settlement resulted in then Commissioner Dean Beaman being run off….Finchem then came in to run the show.