The weather seemed horrible last summer, didn't it? Some would say it was even worse throughout the winter. So far, spring has shown us more of the same... From the US Open to the Canadian Open, rain has poured on golfers like never before.
Off the top of my head, I can think of only a few events that were not meaningfully affected by weather during the last twelve months. The Viking Classic, for example, never even got off the ground! Feel free to correct me, but it certainly seems like the worst weather we've seen on tour in a generation!
Case in point, just last week the Bay Hill Invitational was forced to stretch play well into Monday, after thunderstorms and rain forced a stop on Sunday.
In Europe, the rain has been pouring just as much on tournaments - a condition that has been compounded by cold weather. You will only rarely see a European Tour event that doesn't air footage of players wearing full rain gear and/or cold weather wind shirts, playing under a grey sky.
But, the cold has certainly not been limited to Europe. The Southern United States has been hit with brutal weather as well. Canadian "snowbirds", who usually head South during the winter, in order to avoid the cold (and to play golf, of course) were greeted with frigid temperatures last October as far south as Miami - and it really never improved. One friend called it the worst winter he's ever seen - and he's seen a few...
I can certainly confirm that, when I spent time in Florida this past January, I was waking to frost on the ground in Orlando and needed to wear heavy clothing when I travelled to Miami (for the Dolphins vs Steelers game). In fact, I didn't play a single round of golf while I was there, despite spending a few days at Doral... still incredible to me.
Moreover, courses all over the South have suffered from the bad weather. One has only to watch the Haney Project on television to see the patchiness. In fact, I'm told by avid golfers that the Southern US is littered with blotchy fairways and damaged greens.
What really struck me was that, with only a few months before the Masters, these photos were taken of a snow-covered Augusta National golf course. I don't know how often THAT happens, but it can't be a regular occurrence. Luckily, the geniuses that maintain the grounds (to those extraordinary standards) already have the place in immaculate condition for the Masters.
The point is, the oddity of weather conditions this year is undeniable.
So it is that, as the saying goes, "when it rains it pours!" This image of a snow-covered course in Georgia is really nothing more than a snapshot of a sport that has struggled to keep its head above water all year, in weather but in other ways too.
Fighting a financial crisis that threatens the viability of some tournaments and with its biggest star rocked by personal scandal, the last thing professional golf needs now is to find itself at the mercy of mother nature week after week.
I'm not an environmentalist by any stretch. I certainly try to respect the environment, but generally I don't support the Gore notion of man-made weather and I don't subscribe to the enviro-cult of "think Green". But, as a friend said recently: "man, you gotta wonder!?"
Call it El Nino, or blame it on an unhealthy attachment to fossil fuels - something is very wrong in the sky this year and it makes the likelihood of five consecutive days of nice weather seem unreasonable to expect!
The PGA Tour requires tournaments to be played over almost a full week. Its really that simple. Forget the gate receipts, sponsors pay a small ransom for the pro-ams that are played in the days before the actual tournament. These events raise huge sums of money for charities, but they also fulfill basic requirements of sponsors, who are asking more from golfers and of tournaments as a return on their considerable investment.
While it is trivial to the final result, these peripheral events are actually the backbone of how the PGA pays its players and how the sport remains viable.
As it pertains to the actual tournament, Thursday and Friday are played with large fields of players trying to make the cut. As is often the case when bad weather hits a tournament early-on (as was the case at Bethpage), it can cause panic. If nothing else, it kills the flow of an otherwise perfectly planned event, especially when weather cuts time in half (or worse). It may become a bit easier to manage the field after the cut has been made, but then you also fight a worse enemy - the loss of public interest.
In fact, I don't know anyone who likes to watch golfers play in the pouring rain, even at the Open Championship in Britain (where it always rains). Part of the appeal is the natural beauty of the course and the aesthetics that surrounds the game. If a beautiful sunny picture paints a thousand words, then a wet grey picture paints only one word... blah!
I'm sure that ratings are directly impacted by weather, if anyone cares to check. But, the impact on fan interest is far worse when a tournament can't finish on time. How many people watched the conclusion of the Bay Hill Invitational, after the finish was pushed into Monday morning? Whatever the exact answer, it was most likely less than a third of the audience that would have watched on Sunday. The cost of that is immeasurable.
When golf is in a fight for relevancy, the return of Ernie Els as a legitimate powerhouse and his dogfight with Kevin Na was an important event to showcase. It would have been a good shot in the arm, had it played itself out during prime weekend television coverage... Not so much, when aired on Monday morning.
Obviously, there isn't much anyone can do about it, except maybe hope for the sun to shine and for a break in the trend to emerge SOON. But, weather does what weather wants. I'm going to hope for the best at the Masters, but I'm planning for the worst and bringing a sweater and some rain gear. Better yet, I'll buy something green at the gift shop!
Weather, as Al Gore put it, is just an inconvenient truth...
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