US PGA Tour <> Fantasy Golf?

I can remember in 1999 when I was talking with the US PGA Tour about GolfInvestors and the possibility of them using Gi as a fantasy golf game on their side. I had faxed Tim Finchem right after David Duval had won the PLAYERS Championship and congratulated him on both Duvals winning that weekend, as Bob Duval (David's father) had also won on the Champions Tour that weekend. I then proceeded in contacting Finchem's office further to talk to them about the GolfInvestors concept, as it was just a concept at that time.

When I contacted Finchem's office, they said that I should talk with the "media" executive within the US PGA Tour organization about web partnerships and applications. I wanted to see if the GolfInvestors simulation stock markets would be of interest as a fantasy golf game for the US PGA Tour.

During the phone calls I was told vividly that there was a legal issue with them running fantasy golf games. The executive I was talking to said that golfers were independent contractors and that they, the US PGA Tour, could not use the golfers' names as there was a legal issue. Then basically they said that we had to watch out for the same issue.

So the end result from that interaction, was that they said we should not pursue working with the US PGA Tour as they did not think fantasy golf games would be something that the US PGA Tour would be interested in.

In that conversation, I found out that the executive that I talked to was more worried about keeping his job then he was in working with getting good suppliers and partnerships put together. This sort of attitude seems common place in golf organizations --- the attitude of trying to keep one's job rather than doing well for the organization. I saw this a lot when I was working with the Nicklaus organization. In my experiences at the Nicklaus organization, the person that played the political game the best won the battle between employees. The same thing happened with interactions with the Golf Course Superintendent of America Association (GCSAA).

Such an attitude does not bode well for the overall success of the organization, as employees are looking out for themselves first rather than looking out for the bets interest of the organization that they are working for.

Going back to the US PGA Tour encounter in 1999, since then the US PGA Tour has gone ahead and established their own fantasy golf games and prominently promote them. For example, when I was looking at the home page of the pgatour.com today after the finish of the Accenture World Match Play Championship, they actually us up two main areas to tell users about their fantasy golf games.

Take a look at the screen shot below of the pgatour.com home page from today, Sunday, 2007-02-25, at 6pm MST.

Is the US PGA Tour becoming a Fantasy Golf organization and not a tournament golf organization? Does US PGA Tour = Fantasy Golf? For the sake of the members of the US PGA Tour, the professional golfers, I sure hope not. I hope that US PGA Tour <> Fantasy Golf.

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Some people might read this blog posting and think that I am upset that the US PGA Tour did not use Gi as a fantasy golf game partner. Yes, it is was disappointing when the US PGA Tour pushed us away. However, that was not the biggest disappointment. The biggest disappointment was to find out how the US PGA Tour treats small people / companies and that they do not work with them upfront --- which is basically how many big businesses operate today. They say one thing many times, and do another. They do not work with people upfront, but behind one's back, to ensure that their employees, not necessarily ALL of their members, benefit.

Come to think of it, I do not know of any small company that has benefited from working with the US PGA Tour in the LONG RUN. If I am wrong in this conclusion, please correct me and show me cases where small companies have benefited in the long run when working with the US PGA Tour. Thanks.

[ Updated 2007-08-14: Today I saw that Protrade had one of their users publish an article on pgatour.com. See below the link from the home page (Who's Who at Wyndham) and the article that was published. Interesting that the US PGA Tour is working with ProTrade. Guess since ProTrade has already bought licenses to work with the MLB and the NBA, that the US PGA Tour feels comfortable working with Protrade. Good for Protrade. ]

Link to the Protrade article on pgatour.com

Link to the home page of pgatour.com

Link to the home page of protrade.com