Several Years ago Greg Norman proposed the notion of a World Golf Tour. A series of golf tournaments filled with big purse events, no cuts, and played on the best golf courses around the world. It would pit only the best golfers going head to head week after week throughout the year.
He recognized early on the desire that emerging golf markets around the world had to see the best golfers compete close up in their locales.
He was immediately castigated and publicly attacked in the media. How dare he kick the gift horse that was the PGA Tour in the mouth and propose such a communistic idea.
Lesser known PGA Tour professionals that depended on making the occasional cut and endorsement money feared losing their cash flow stream.
Not too long after Greg’s outrageous idea the three World Golf Championship events were born. How unique, three golf tournaments that were invitation only or had very stringent qualification standards to be included became co-sponsored by the PGA and the European Tours.
The European Tour at the time was just a poor stepchild compared to the lucrative PGA Tour. Very few big purse events were available outside the U.S. Due to the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) criteria to gain entry only a few top players from Europe or Asia ever got in.
Europe has been creeping up on the PGA in recent years. With the European Tour’s practice of offering “appearance fees” paid to the top golfers to show up at their events. The European Tour’s strength of field has strengthened which has increased their OWGR ranking points offered in their events. It has allowed their members to move up in the world rankings and qualify for the majors, as well as, the WGC tournaments.
Look at the OWGR today Europeans hold four of the top five spots.
Asia, China, and other countries like Turkey are demanding more top flight golf tournaments in their countries. They also have the economic power to draw the best golfers to their parts of the world.
How long will it be before we see a new world order and possibly a World Golf Tour (WGT) where the PGA, European, Australian, Asian, and Sunshine Tours become minor tours that function similar to the Web.com, Challenge, or even the Hooters Tours do today?
Maybe Greg Norman wasn’t too far off base after all, just a wee bit ahead of his time.