The PGA Tours International Federation, which consists
of the PGA Tour, the European Tour, the Southern African PGA
Tour, the PGA Tour of Australasia and the PGA Tour of Japan,
introduced three joint-sanctioned world championship events
set to begin in '99 (World Golf Championships). In '99,
the World Golf Championships will include three events, each
with a purse of "at least" $4M. The first match will
feature a match play format played February 24-28, '99 at La
Costa, CA. The other events will be stroke play tournaments
with no 36-hole cut. OH's Firestone Country Club will host
the second event in August '99 and the last event will be
played at Spain's Valderrama Golf Club. A fourth event is
"slated to be added by" 2000. There will be "no title
sponsors" for any of the new tournaments, but Anderson
Consulting will serve as the "presenting sponsor" of the
match play event (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 10/30). Each of the
tournaments will be seen in more than 120 countries. In
the U.S., ABC/ESPN will carry February's World Match Play
and November's Stroke Play Championship, while CBS and USA
will cover August's World Golf Invitational (World Golf
Championships). In Houston, Richard Dean reports that Greg
Norman proposed "basically the same concept" three years
ago, but his idea of a World Tour, with a possible
partnership with Fox, was "dismissed" as one that would
"weaken" the PGA Tour (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 10/30). PGA
Commissioner Tim Finchem: "It's different than the 1994
initiative that Greg Norman endorsed, in a couple of ways.
Primarily, timing and structure" ("SportsCenter," 10/29).
