You may additionally have heard approximately the reduced start necessities for the PGA Tour in 2013. So a ways I've only visible Rex Hoggard reporting on it.
In case you have not heard, here's the skinny: Because of the modifications to the Tour taking place next year -- the brand new "wraparound" schedule in an effort to start the 2014 season after the FedExCup Playoffs -- the 2013 season will most effective be nine months long. Largely to make sure that the men promoted from the Web.Com Tour and the last version of Q-School get sufficient begins to try to maintain their playing cards, the Tour is lowering the number of starts offevolved required to hold vote casting privileges from 15 to 12.
They're doing some different things as properly, consisting of asking occasions to increase their fields quickly, to attempt to help the new men at some stage in the shortened season.
However, the topic of discussion has been whether this reduction might be continued past 2013 -- perhaps as a response to the Euro Tour's decision to let team events (Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, Seve Cup) count against their tour requirements. (They only require 13 events for membership as it is.) The thinking is that the tours are competing for the best players and may reduce requirements to induce dual membership.
Hoggard said on Morning Drive that he didn't believe the reduction would extend beyond 2013.
I suspect he's correct. I don't see how reducing requirements will induce players to take dual memberships when the main issue seems to be travel time around the globe. McIlroy has already said that he tired himself out this year with too much traveling, although I think that should be taken with a grain of salt. After all, Rory relocated to the US this year, which is a major strain in and of itself without including the travel time for tournaments.
The buzz is that this entire thing should constitute the beginnings of the "global tour" concept that is been debated because Greg Norman advised it many years returned.
But this overlooks the main issue. The world tour is here, folks... at least for the big names. The four majors and three of the WGCs are the heart of it, being official events on both tours. (I suspect the WGC-HSBC Champions in China will become official on the PGA Tour before long.) If you're good enough to qualify for these seven events, you currently need only 8 PGA Tour events and 6 European Tour events -- a total of just 21 events -- to maintain dual membership. (For 2013 you can reduce that total to 18, with that one-year 12-event minimum on the PGA Tour.)
Reducing the event requirement just doesn't make sense if you're trying to draw players to your events rather than their events. Reducing the requirements merely allows the best players to cherry-pick the top events on each tour, which ultimately hurts your tour. Just think about how much trouble the PGA Tour has had trying to get the big names to play smaller events on their own tour!
If dual membership is the goal here, it seems more logical to co-sponsor enough events to fulfill most (not all) of the requirements, so players need only play two or three other events on each tour to make that tour's minimums. The key here is which tournaments you co-sponsor.
Let's assume that eventually the four majors and four WGCs give you 8 "world tour" events. Each tour should set their minimum at 15 events and pick a couple of mid-tier events to co-sponsor, making 12 "world tour " events. (I suspect those mid-tier events would soon become very desirable targets for sponsors!) Now players would only need to pick three other events on each tour to fulfill their minimums, for a total of only 18 events. (12 "world tour" events plus 3 PGA events plus 3 Euro events.)
This plan isn't ideal, of route -- you continue to need a few manner to get huge call players to an occasional small occasion, and you want a few way to kind out who gets in the ones mid-tier events because you'd have extra players (from each sides of the pond) competing for access. But this gives the great ET gamers an incentive to play inside the US more often, and most of the massive-name US players already play three or 4 foreign places occasions similarly to their PGA Tour commitments.
The LPGA and LET already seem to have figured this out. I suspect it is most effective a remember of time earlier than the men seize on as properly.
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