No Vacancy

As Commissioner Bivens has made clearer her vision of growing the LPGA brand, it was presumed by a few (myself not included) that she was going to shrink the Tour's rank and file and feed them to the Futures Tour.  While that hasn't exactly happened, we do seem to be heading towards a similar situation.

The sparse schedule during the first half of the 2009 season has shown me a trend that, while I was aware of its primary effect, had escaped me when I first realized the number of off-weeks.  Take a look at the Tour leaders in Events Played going into the Farr.  11 players have played every single event so far this season while 31 others have played 12 of them.  22 more players have made 11 starts and 52 more have made 10.  That means about 80% of the field for each tournament is getting filled by the same players - the ones with the highest priority.  This is happening because there have been enough natural breaks in the schedule for the higher priority players to rest.  Last year's 13^th event was Corning on Memorial Day weekend.  Prior to Memorial Day 2008 there were only two off-weeks and Corning was the ninth consecutive week the Tour competed.  This year there were seven off-weeks prior to Event #13 and we have yet to play more than three consecutive weeks, and won't until Safeway-Canada-Arkansas-Samsung starting at the end of August.  Last year's schedule required players to skip an occasional event - this year's forces them to play as often as possible.

When you throw out the starts by Monday qualifiers, only one time this year did any players from the lowest depths of the Priority list (Category 20) make the field - at Corona, just about the time of the swine flu outbreak in Mexico City.  Not much I can say about that.  Every other full-field event has seen the cutoff point come from between player #156 and #170 except for SBS where #232 Song Yi Choi made it (about #178 in reality) and Wegmans where #226 Becky Iverson made the field (#175 was approximately her "real" position).

Looking at it another way - the lowest Field Scores I've recorded so far this year have been 63, at both SBS and Corona.  MasterCard was the only other event which scored below 85.  Last year through 13 events there were three tournaments which scored lower than 63 (a whole lot lower, to boot) and seven which scored lower than 85.  That's a huge difference in the percentage of events with thin fields.

And there we stumble upon the crux - if each event played has a stronger field on average (more of the best players every week), doesn't that "strengthen the LPGA brand"?  Which is ultimately better for the Tour - stronger fields week-in week-out or more events with progressively weaker fields?  I have been locked into the "more events is better" philosophy because well, I'm a fan and I want to see more golf.  But maybe fewer events in exchange for much stronger fields on average is a good thing for the Tour.  When the casual fan watches the LPGA, does he want to see Ochoa, Wie, Creamer, Gulbis and Pak or does he want to see McGann, Ellis, Kemp and Lucidi?  I've not had kind words to say about Nancy Lopez' occasional forays into competition but some people like seeing her and other former stars come back and play occasionally.  Those opportunities for the vets are all but zilch these days.  We all know which players the TV production crews want to show.  The Tiger Woods Syndrome for TV and galleries is in effect to some degree on the LPGA Tour as well.  I'm now a little torn on which approach is best, for me personally and for the Tour.

After completion of the Jamie Farr Classic, most players from position #150 on down might as well find a summer job.  Unless they've qualified for the U.S. or British Opens and with the limited-field Evian Masters coming up, those players won't be eligible to tee it up in an LPGA event for the next seven weeks.  Once that drought ends, a few upper-echelon players will skip one of the six straight events that lead into October (five of which are full-field) and open some holes for these players to get in.  But that will be it.  The events in Asia are limited fields, as is the Ochoa Invitational and the so-called LPGA Tour Championship.

So without any official proclamations or demotions, the mere erosion of the LPGA schedule has relegated the lesser players to occasional stand-in status.  My original dismay at the reduced number of events blinded me to the fact that the top players would still be playing just as much they had been, and the lesser players would suffer for it.  Larry Smich has alluded to this effect a few times on his blog but until this year's numbers came into focus, those comments went right by me.

The economy deleted most of the missing events but is this weeding out of events being pushed further?  Almost every week we hear talk that the Tour negotiations are still insisting on purse increases from sponsors.  With the demise of Kapalua we currently have 28 events on the schedule and will almost certainly have less than that in 2010.  I'm guessing that the schedule could be contracted down to about 25 events and would still increase the average strength of field.  Beyond that, you're taking a big chance on reducing exposure of the LPGA too far. Any gain made by adding a small amount of strength to the fields would start to be offset by the extra loss of continuity.  If efforts have been or are still being undertaken to purposely reduce the number of events (whatever the reasoning), those efforts had best be throttled back soon.