Cities Missing in a Links Takeover

Corporate takeovers have forever been a part of the world of business. Not only is that a good place for them, but that is the only place for them. I didn’t mind all those giant conglomerates devouring one another like those little Pac Men swallowing dots.

However, I don’t like it when those Goliath companies start consuming huge chunks of real estate in the world of sports. My world.

No, I don’t think I’m naive. I realize that corporations, in some form, own most of the teams I find in almost any baseball, football or basketball standings.

It just really startled me this week to learn that corporations are capable of erasing entire communities.

Especially San Diego. My town.

Let me preface my point by listing eight golf tournaments. Ready?

1. Anheuser-Busch Classic.

2. Buick Open.

3. B.C. Open.

4. LaJet Classic.

5. J.C. Penney Classic.

6. USF&G; Classic.

7. Honda Classic.

8. Kemper Open.

There’s the list. This now becomes a geography test. Where are the tournaments located? OK, so you can’t tell me the cities. Can you even tell me the states? No, the B.C. Open is not in British Columbia. You missed the one you thought you had right, right?. Oh, you thought the Anheuser-Busch Classic might be in St. Louis? You’re off by almost 900 miles.

In truth, these golf tournaments could be anywhere. The corporations have bought them, and buried their communities in a heap of greenbacks.

Remember earlier this year when Kathryn Crosby refused to sell out the Crosby Clambake to AT&T;? We would not be subjected to an American Telephone & Telegraph Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, but we would also not be treated to watching the splendor of Jack Nicklaus and the futility of Jack Lemmon on that mid-winter weekend from Monterey.

I am sure most fans shared my feeling that somehow an American institution had been run over by a figurative corporate bulldozer. It did not help that the culprit was the same one which brought us telephone bills as complicated as income tax forms.

And now it has struck us right in our backyard.

We have had the Wickes-Andy Williams San Diego Open and, most recently, the Isuzu-Andy Williams San Diego Open. Those names were long and awkward, as gangly as a 6-foot 11-inch high school freshman trying to play varsity basketball. The name was invariably shortened to the San Diego Open, since that is what it has always been.

I suspected trouble was ahead when Isuzu pulled out after the most recent tournament, and I knew trouble was ahead when I learned Shearson Lehman Brothers had taken over as sponsors.

Would we now have the Shearson Lehman Brothers-Andy Williams San Diego Open?

Not on your life. Something would have to give.

Shearson Lehman put up the bucks. It bought its name on the tournament just as you can pay to have your message on a T-shirt. It just cost Shearson Lehman a few more dollars--possibly as much as $2 million a year. The Brothers Shearson Lehman would stay.

Sayonara, Andy. Right? Wrong. Andy Williams’ name remains on the tournament. I guess you have to have a genuine celebrity in the title to put together a dinner show and get Bob Hope to come to your pro-am. It’s called star value.

By now, you know what has been dumped from the title. The Shearson Lehman Brothers Andy Williams Open will be played Feb. 6-9, 1986, at Torrey Pines.

San Diego is out. The tournament will be played on a tax-subsidized San Diego municipal golf course, and San Diego is out.

I can just imagine a couple of television viewers back in the frigid midwest watching the SLBAWO next winter, wondering just where the golfers might be cavorting in such brilliant sunshine.

“Dunno,” they will conclude. “It’s Andy Williams’ party. Must be in Moon River, wherever that is.”

San Diego? As far as the professional tour is concerned, the city has slipped from existence. Tell me, has Donald Sterling become involved with golf?

San Diego has become just another corporate stop in the world of golf, albeit one with a token celebrity attached. Even America’s Finest City can be engulfed and erased by a pile of corporate bucks.

I am fearful of where this type of trend might lead, should it seep into other sports. How would you feel rooting for the McDonald’s Padres or the A.G. Spanos Industries Chargers? How about a National League Championship Series against the Tribune Cubs? Or a World Series against the Domino’s Pizza Tigers?

It will never come to that? Probably not. It just bothers me that it has come to San Diego at all.

In all fairness to San Diego’s Century Club, which had to make the final decision, it did not really have much choice. Because of its concern for charity revenues, it had to ultimately decide what could be dropped from the tournament name without having a negative financial impact.

Neither community pride nor tradition come with dollar signs attached. And that blessing also turned out to be a curse.