Why was the US PGA Tour formed in the first place? In short, from what I can tell, the US PGA Tour was formed because in it's previous existance under the PGA of America the players were being controlled by the beauracy of the PGA of America organization and they wanted more control of their tournaments and livelihood.
Note: The US PGA Tour might disagree with this based upon their 'History' page at http://www.pgatour.com/company/pgatour_history.html
So if the purpose of setting up the US PGA Tour back in 1969 was to give the playhers more control of 'their' tournaments and livelihood, my question these days is the US PGA Tour actually now too big for itself and is no longer providing the necessary benefits to the players and control the players want? Then another question that is in my mind is "Does the US PGA Tour need to control the world's professional tournament golf industry?"
Prior to 1969, professional golf tournaments in the USA were sanctioned and run by the PGA of America, with several run by the USGA (i.e. the US Open). The PGA of America was, and still is, an industry association for club professionals. The PGA of America was, and still is, very buearcractic and stuffy-nosed. In such an organization it is very difficult to change and improve at any sizeable amounts. As well, only a select few control the movement and goals of the organization.
Thus, the professional golfers that were playing trounament golf for a living got fed up with the PGA of America and started their own assoications --- the US PGA Tour -- in August 1975. The first commissioner was Joseph C. Dey and the second one was Deane Beanman. The current commissioner of the US PGA Tour, Tim Finchem, is only the 3rd commissioner of the organization.
Since Tim Finchem became commissioner in 1993, tournaments sanctioned by the US PGA Tour have seen their purses grow by more than 500%. In 1993 the average total purse for a tournament was $1 million, with the winner getting $180,000. In 2005, the average tournament purse was $4.5 million, with the winner getting over $750,000 on average.
As a comparison, inflation has been 5% per year, which is a total of 100% for the same aggregate period. The Nationwide Tour, the development tour for the US PGA Tour, is close to the level in purses which the main tour was at in 1993.
Now, as any true capitalisitic organization flusth with cash would do, the US PGA Tour is trying to take over and rule the world of golf. As an American, that could be considered good --- have a US-based, US-oriented organization tell the rest of the world what to do.
However, the US PGA Tour is not the most worldly tour. The European PGA Tour actually plays in 40 different countries, as compared to 3 countries by the US PGA Tour (USA, Mexico, and Canada).
Forget the "World Golf" events which the US PGA Tour created after telling Greg Norman that he could not create a world golf tour, and then stealing his idea.
Do we still need associations and groups like the US PGA Tour which are bottlenecks to many aspiring professional golfers? Can individual golf tournaments stand on their own without these tours?
The US PGA Tour was created by the players for the players. However, it has gotten away from that ideology and it is a bunch of non-players administrators along with just a handful of players running the show in the building in Ponte Verda Beach, Florida -- trying to rule the world of tournament golf.
So how is this relevant to GolfInvestors?
1) The US PGA Tour could easily quash the Gi concept by including a clause in their membership agreement saying Gi is "illegal" for their players to use. So no players would be able to offer shares of themselves on a Gi stock market. They have become that powerful in the industry. If they can stop Greg Norman's idea, they can stop little me's idea.
2) To point out that Gi is not trying to control this concept, but rather prompting other similar concepts by other groups --- and then partnering. Gi is not a hub-spoke system, but part of an amoeba structure of industry-specific stock markets. The structure being similar to the file-sharing networks --- i.e. stock-sharing stock market networks -- a network of stock markets. We want to build our own client following that is a piece of the cake and not the cake itself. If we become a piece of the cake it means that industry-specific stock markets are legitimate.
And on a final note, the US PGA Tour touts it's web site, pgatour.com, as the most visted golf site and continues to try to add more information to it's site...including info outside of its core operations of managing a tour. This means they could easily become a means for players to raise money to play professional golf. But should they?.....that is a question yet to be answered.....happy trading.
