In a column in the Salt Lake Tribune, Kirk Kragthorpe writes that the PGA Tour could learn a lot from NASCAR. He writes that with NASCAR,

Viewers can tune in every weekend, resuming a continuing story of the season. Fans can buy a ticket to next year’s UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400, knowing that Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the rest will all be back at LVMS.
That’s just not true with golf. The occasional convergence of stars is what makes major tournaments the majors, but the side effect is that too many weekly tournaments lose appeal because the top players are missing. Thanks to a combination of wanting to pursue points and please their sponsors, the walking billboards of NASCAR hit the road every week.

The NASCAR season is just as long as the PGA’s, but NASCAR’s top guns appear in nearly every race. Kragthorpe says that’s due to the weekly rewards of the points system and the demands of sponsors.

It’s food for thought. Could the PGA demand a minimum number of events to avoid a trip to Q School? 

One of the things that I find most unbelievable about the PGA Tour is how many of the players don’t know the rules. If I was out there playing on tour, you can bet I’d know the rules backward and forward. As I tell the players on my team: knowledge of the game can win matches.

It can also lose them. Briny Baird was DQ’d from the Honda Classic because he did not fully understand the new rules on lift, clean and place.

I think the most important rule for the hacker to remember has to do with your options when a ball goes into a hazard. Most people just drop the ball on the edge of the hazard where it went in.

But there are two other options: You can drop the ball anywhere behind that point keeping a straight line between the hole, the point where the ball crossed the margin of the water hazard; or, you can play again from where you hit the ball into the hazard.

These last two are useful if you have a preferred distance. Lets say that the water hazard is 60 yards from the green. Your shot from the edge of the hazard would be a tough three quarters swing from rough.

Instead, you could take the ball back along the line to a distance that you are sure of—say 100 yards. You might even be in the fairway.

If you already hit the ball from a preferred distance, you might just want to hit it again from that spot.

If its a lateral hazard, you also could drop within two club-lengths of the point where the ball crossed the margin of the hazard or a point on the opposite side of the hazard equidistant from the hole.

Again, you want to take the option that leaves you with the best lie at a distance that you are sure of.

Fifty years ago, on a handshake deal with Arnold Palmer, the late Mark McCormack launched IMG, the first of the super sports agencies. So what does Palmer think of IMG’s thinly-disguised appearance fee plan?

“They said that in the letter?” Palmer said Thursday. “Who wrote the letter? That’s a surprise. That is unreal. That’s terrible.”

A story on the King’s reaction appeared in the Orlando Sentinel.

Ryan Ballengee at Sports Central continues the debate started by Tiger Woods a couple of weeks ago when he suggested that there were just too many tour events. I think that the Tour should have as many events as the market will bear. Ryan, however, says:

The Tour season has to be shorter. It would promote better fields as a percentage of all tournaments played. Attendance could receive a significant increase as a result. Television ratings will surely increase and give the game better mainstream exposure. This happened when Tiger Woods first displayed dominance in the late-’90s. When he played, people watched. That is still true today. Ratings for Woods’ tournament appearances are double-digits percentages higher than other events…

... Certainly, it could be noted that reducing the number of events in a season would restrict many struggling players from retaining their Tour cards. Believe it or not, this could be a blessing in disguise. The Nationwide Tour has developed into a strong talent pool for future PGA Tour stars.

By relegating a number of mediocre PGA Tour players, the Nationwide Tour instantly becomes more engaging and watchable. Nationwide ratings could increase and give the Tour network exposure. Again, purses would increase and more golfers could make a living playing the sport they love. All the while, as the PGA Tour likes to remind everyone, more charities receive more money and the philanthropic tradition of the game grows stronger.

I have to give him this: it likely would make the Nationwide Tour stronger. 

Here’s the 2005 PGA Schedule: