On the most recent FEG podcast, Andy brings up the question of what should the Tour do with all of the cash they have on hand from the recent investment from SSG? He offers the suggestion of adding permanent grandstands because people clearly love to play a golf course when it has the stadium feel, just look at how demand sky rocketed at Bethpage this year.
My initial thought for this question was to use a small chunk of that $3 billion to renovate some of the stinker TPC courses with a top tier architect like Tom Doak, who has proven that he's great at building a golf course that challenges pros and creates interesting tournament play. See Memorial Park in Houston, TX.
While turning a subpar TPC course into an excellent one may not do quite enough to help the PGA Tour gain more momentum it would be cool if the TPC network didn't have a bunch of lousy courses. They already have the infrastructure in place, most are close to metro areas so perhaps a high quality golf course that's stimulating to watch the pros play along with some extra bells and whistles (permanent grandstands?) could create these longstanding hubs for events so the tour doesn't have to rely so much on country clubs hosting their tournaments.
Yes, this does sound like the stadium course concept that Pete Dye and Dean Beaman were after in the 1980's but maybe we could do a better job in modern times. I'm not sure if this is even a good idea by myself and perhaps I'm being selfish for just wanting more quality publicly accessible designs but I'd love to hear other peoples pipe dream ideas for what the PGA should do with its stockpile of cash other than give the players comfy pensions.
On the most recent FEG podcast, Andy brings up the question of what should the Tour do with all of the cash they have on hand from the recent investment from SSG? He offers the suggestion of adding permanent grandstands because people clearly love to play a golf course when it has the stadium feel, just look at how demand sky rocketed at Bethpage this year.
My initial thought for this question was to use a small chunk of that $3 billion to renovate some of the stinker TPC courses with a top tier architect like Tom Doak, who has proven that he's great at building a golf course that challenges pros and creates interesting tournament play. See Memorial Park in Houston, TX.
While turning a subpar TPC course into an excellent one may not do quite enough to help the PGA Tour gain more momentum it would be cool if the TPC network didn't have a bunch of lousy courses. They already have the infrastructure in place, most are close to metro areas so perhaps a high quality golf course that's stimulating to watch the pros play along with some extra bells and whistles (permanent grandstands?) could create these longstanding hubs for events so the tour doesn't have to rely so much on country clubs hosting their tournaments.
Yes, this does sound like the stadium course concept that Pete Dye and Dean Beaman were after in the 1980's but maybe we could do a better job in modern times. I'm not sure if this is even a good idea by myself and perhaps I'm being selfish for just wanting more quality publicly accessible designs but I'd love to hear other peoples pipe dream ideas for what the PGA should do with its stockpile of cash other than give the players comfy pensions.
