Should the Tour set each players schedule?

I hear the Old Crosby tourny is in trouble in 2 weeks because of alll the money being offered in Qater and ABU DHABI the next few weeeks.Should the tour in these economic times force certain players to stay here and play?Kim,Perry and several others have allready said they will play over sea's the next few weeks for good appearence money.What do you think?

If a tourney cannot generate top tier registrants then it needs to change to an OPEN. I hope the Bob Hope folds because of what they did to George Lopez.

I thought appearance money was illegal to pay players or for players to accept when the PGA has scheduled tournaments that week.

Do those OTHER events include European Tour events?

IMO, the players should be allowed to play whatever tournament they want.

I'm fine with letting the players set their own schedules. Can you imagine how someone would play if they didn't want to be there? You might see passive displays of disobedience, such as always hitting an iron off the tee, never going for pins, etc - playing safe golf, but nothing to wow the crowds - if they didn't want to be there.

Do you know if this is U.S. law or a PGA Tour rule?

As independent contractors, the players have the right to set whatever schedule they like.

However, to help out some of these smaller events, what I would like to see the Tour do is set up some kind of rule so that players are required to eventually play all the tournaments. Nothing drastic, but something along the lines of "player must participate in every event within a 5 year period." To me it would be a good way to ensure that all the events can get the bump that having the biggest names would bring.

It stopped being the "Crosby" in 1986. Players will make a big deal about being "independent contractors" and should be able to play wherever they like. Why should the tour "force" them to do anything? So what if a bunch of tournaments are lost because of a lack of sponsorship? If American players are playing in Europe, then it's good for the game. I can't stand "celebrity" pro-ams, and you can be pretty sure the players hate them too. Every celebrity seems to have a vanity handicap and it's the same old boring routine year in year out, with silly hats and mock anger and mock indifference to good shots. Commentators will drool and marvel over Kenny G, who they will tell you 30 times an hour is a "scratch marker" hitting a wedge to 20 feet from the hole and George Lopez will strut about like the publicity ho that he is. etc. etc. No wonder some of the players want to be somewhere else.

How about the money raised for chairity by the event?If all they have is bottom feeders showing up for a specific event then who the hell will buy the tickets?Might as well cut the schedule down to say 15 events per year?That would be the death of pro golf.Out of sight out of mind.

No. Each play is a independent contractor. With that being said, I do like the LPGA's rule about playing a event once every three years, I think it is three years.

I keep hearing that each player is a "Independent contractor".If this is so then why have a PGA or USGA or R&A; at all?Lets everyone meet at bethpage Black 2 weeks from Thursday and we will play for lets say 6 million?Oh by the way we each have to put up 500,000 so we can have a good purse and rent the course.See we are independent contractors and do not have to answer to anyone.Yeah good luck keeping that going.

I was going to say that the Rules of the European Tour (which is an entity separate from the R&A;, btw) allow appearance money to be paid to players who have won two Majors. It was introduced originally to entice/allow Tony Jacklin to be able to afford to play in Europe. I saw John Jacobs talking about it on the TV a few weeks ago.

However, I now find appearance money is paid to pretty much anyone who is a 'draw', from Tiger Woods (something astronomical to play in Australia) to Ernie Els ($200,000 to play in the Middle East a few years ago). And non-Major champions as well. Probably viewed as marketing investment.

I think the reality is that any tour outside the PGA has to pay appearance money to stars, or they'll simply elect to ply their trade elsewhere. It becomes 'nothing personal, only business' - for the European Tour, especially, to survive and prosper, in the current climate at least, it has to attract stars - and appearance fees is the name of the game. If financial circumstances change, then maybe appearance fees will change, also. If the money on the PGA Tour reduces and the European Tour holds up reasonably well, then maybe the appearance money pot can be added to the prize funds - making them more attractive.

I am being somewhat flippant but you can not begin to compare the PGA tour with any other pro sport.ALL the major pro sports have contracts with unions representing the players who realize for the good of the game independent contractors do not work.Now that Tiger is away when they renegotatiate the TV package do ypu think it will increase?If they banded as a union they could guarentee so many top 10 for certain events and therefore get more fee rights from sponcers.Charlie Finley once said if you want to keep the union in kine make every ball player a free agent after every season.I think the man was a genius and well ahead of his time.Neither the union nor the ballclubs had the balls to try it.If the tour does not prop up the smaller events with name players there has to be attrition on the tour and 125 will be 60 or 70.Then what good is being independent to numbers 61-125?

What you (flap) said makes no sense. Not only does what you're saying not make sense, it was hard to make sense of what you typed in the first place. Seriously, a space or two after a period will do wonders. And spell-check. The last person I had to lecture on that was less than a fourth of your age. In any case, let's try to parse what you said.

Maybe I don't follow tennis or NASCAR as much as I do golf, but I didn't realize these had players' unions. I realize these folks have more appearance requirements than players on the PGA Tour do.

So, the goal of a players' union in golf would be to force Tiger or Phil to appear where he doesn't want to? Maybe Tiger should have played more when Earl was dying, and Phil should play more now instead of spending so much darn time with the two cancer-stricken women in his life.

Also, what world do you live in where Jim Furyk and Lee Westwood move the needle enough to warrant higher sponsor fees? No offense to those two - they're great to watch. But if the final group is Jim Furyk and Lee Westwood, I'm not inclined to tune in if it weren't already in the plans.

Smaller events will disappear, and this will cause half the players to disappear too? How would they fill the fields for the other events? And I'm pretty sure folks from Bill Haas to Jimmy Walker are doing pretty well for being independent in the range you mention.

This may be an ignorant post because I do not know much about this scoring system, but: If you need more players to play in an event, and you don't have or want to give money, you need to give them some type of incentive to play. Why not make the smaller event worth more points in the FedEx cup? This would give players an incentive to play without costing money, correct? But the one think I do not know is if all event are included in the FedEx cup... Just my thought, but I don't think you can force a player to do anything, such as play an event.