FL-based National Car Rental extended its sponsorship
of the PGA Tour's National Car Rental Classic at the Walt
Disney World Resort through 2002. The first three rounds of
the October event will be televised on ESPN, while ABC will
carry the final round. The $3M purse for 2000 is the
largest in the tournament's 30-year-history (THE DAILY).
COME A LONG WAY? BUSINESS WEEK's Mark Hyman writes the
Tiger Woods effect "can cut both ways. While it has
ratcheted up public interest in golf and sent TV ratings
soaring, it is contributing to the decline of the Senior
Tour and helping sideline the [LPGA]. And all that interest
doesn't seem to translate into equipment sales" (BUSINESS
WEEK, 10/16 issue). In Toronto, Mark Atchison writes that
the LPGA is "losing credibility faster than tournaments."
While players like Nancy Lopez and Jan Stephenson once
"positioned the LPGA right behind the PGA Tour in terms of
importance," women's golf now gets "less respect than the
PGA Seniors and European Tour from most media outlets,
especially" TV. The LPGA Tour has "lost or cancelled at
least five tournaments" over the past several years,
including the major stop, the du Maurier Classic.
Meanwhile, some Tour players are "unhappy" with Tour
Commissioner Ty Votaw for replacing the du Maurier with the
Women's British Open "because of the added expense they face
going overseas to compete" (TORONTO STAR, 10/10).
