Meter Might Be Running for Riviera
Does anybody want this golf tournament?
It has been around for 73 years, 37 of them at Riviera Country Club, and it has had more names than you could find in a telephone book (Los Angeles Open, Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open, Los Angeles Open Presented by Nissan, Nissan Los Angeles Open), but the venerable Nissan Open is starting to look a little confused.
While the $2.8-million event is enjoying its strongest field in history and the course at Riviera has never been better, the tournament has parked itself at a crossroads.
What happens next is going to be part of history, just as much as Ben Hogan’s brilliance.
After the 2000 tournament, Riviera’s contract and Nissan’s contract with the Junior Chamber of Commerce will expire. And the Junior Chamber’s deal with the PGA Tour expires in 2002 along with the tour’s television contract.
So what’s the problem here? The two biggest ones might be money and parking.
* Riviera, which gets $250,000 from the Junior Chamber, is asking for $425,00 for a new, five-year deal. The event might wind up moving instead.
* The Veterans Administration Hospital, which gets $20,000 from the Junior Chamber for parking, wanted $150,000. Hospital officials settled for $27,500 . . . this time.
* Parking is a nightmare. The neighborhood association near Riviera restricts traffic, parking and shuttles through the area.
* Riviera has little parking. It could offer more, most notably at the tennis club location. On Wednesday, the shuttle from the hospital was stopped at the gate and riders were unloaded there after tennis players complained about the noise and inconvenience.
If the neighborhood and the club don’t seem to be going out of their way to make sure the Nissan Open stays put, the options for the Junior Chamber and the tour look like this:
* Move back to Valencia Country Club (which charged no rent when the tournament was held there in 1998) until the new Tournament Players Course is completed nearby in 2002.
* Solve the problems and stay at Riviera.
If Riviera does wish to stage the 2005 U.S. Open, then it needs to remain a tournament site.
As for the Junior Chamber, it makes
$4 million to $5 million from the tournament and funds all of its programs and projects with the proceeds.
In the meantime, the PGA Tour seems to be hinting strongly that the tournament must clean up its act, beginning when the first car shows up.
“Parking is probably one of the core challenges,” said Ric Clarson, the PGA Tour’s vice president of tournament business affairs. “It impacts every constituent of the tournament.
“There are a lot of operational issues and some financial issues that need to be addressed. The players love this golf course, but there are certain other issues besides the competition.
“The club and the city need to address the value of this tournament to them. We are going to need a true partnership to stay here.”
NOTHING ORIGINAL
The pairings sheet for the Nissan Open, a one-page list from a photocopier, sells for $1.
TIGER UPDATE
The Tiger Woods empire continues to grow. His new Asahi canned coffee commercial airs in Japan this week, he will shoot two new Nike commercials and two new American Express commercials the week after the La Costa match-play event and he just signed a deal to play a European PGA Tour event in May.
Woods has added to his schedule the Deutche Bank Open in Heidelberg, Germany. The going rate for Woods’ appearance fee is $1 million.
THE SIZE OF IT
For what it’s worth, Woods’ Masters coat is a size 42 long.
BEN THERE, DONE THAT
Ben Crenshaw is an old fogy. Well, maybe not, but if you’re talking about paying guarantees to players who miss the cut, as the upstart Tournament Players Assn. has suggested, you can count Crenshaw out.
“The request for more [financial] information, that’s fine,” Crenshaw said. “But to change the framework of our rules, that’s a lot for players who have played for so long to swallow. It’s the way it’s always been and it’s been successful.”
MONEY, MONEY EVERYWHERE
Question: How can a tournament that has never been played be the best event of its kind in the world?
Answer: When it’s the $5-million Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship at La Costa.
That’s what Ernie Els thinks. And Els, of course, is one of the best in the world at match play, so he should know.
“I think it’s going to be the match-play tournament in the world, no question about it,” he said.
Els said that the field of the top 64 players in the world rankings, the prize money and the format--18-hole matches until the 36-hole final--elevate the tournament to the degree that it’s already probably the best.
Actually, there aren’t any others, excluding the World Match Play at Wentworth, England, but that is basically a production for IMG clients, a 12-player field engaged in 36-hole matches.
But Els said next week’s tournament at La Costa would be one of a kind anyway.
“Since it’s 18 holes, you get down by a couple of holes early, you’ve got to grind it out. This is kind of more like a shootout. The way these guys play, they don’t make many mistakes. You have to make birdies to win.”
WHO’S NO. 1?
Woods or David Duval?
You can end that debate right now, Els said.
“Oh, it’s got to be Tiger, hands down at the moment,” Els said. “When he’s playing like this, he’s pretty unbelievable, really.”