Hey LPGA: Good Riddance!

No-el, No el, No LPGA!  

Remember that oh so annoying radio and TV commercial that used to air all the time around the holiday season?  It used to air constantly around the Rochester area, urging golf fans to buy their tickets for the upcoming summer’s LPGA tour event.  

It would implore you, that if you didn’t get your tickets soon, there would be “no Lopez, no Sorenstam…no Natalie Gulbis as your favorite stocking stuffer!”

Little did we know at the time all those years, it would also be a very prophetic little diddy.  That’s because after this August’s Wegmans LPGA Championship, the golfers will all be packing into their little golf carts, and driving away from Rochester for good.

Twenty…fifteen, maybe even ten years ago, I would have been devastated by this news.  The annual LPGA tour stop was a big deal here in golf crazed Rochester.  

The event started way back in 1977, when Pat Bradley won the “Bankers Trust Classic”.  What was a Bankers Trust anyways?  It was a local bank I believe.  It’s been so long ago, that I can’t even recall what Bankers Trust eventually morphed into.  It was a nice new little tour event that didn’t really catch on until the next year when a young upstart named Nancy Lopez was becoming the “Jack Nicklaus of the LPGA tour”.  Lopez won a record fifth straight weekly tour stop at Locust Hill, and a legend…and a tournament…was born.

Rochester galleries fell in love with Nancy Lopez and “Nancy’s Navy” would push her to more tournament wins in the Roc and great success.  It was a mutual love affair too.  Nancy Lopez fell in love with Rochester as much as the town embraced her.

Largely because of Nancy Lopez, the yearly LPGA event was a “can’t miss” event in town.  It was a place to socialize, and catch up with fellow fans many would only see once a year–at the tournament.  The “fan favorite” mantle began to fade from Nancy as her game did the same, and that torch was passed to Patty Sheehan–a diminutive warrior in golf slacks and a visor.  Sheehan would win FOUR times in Rochester, many in thrilling fashion.

After Sheehan, Rochester adopted Rosie Jones, Karrie Webb and Lorena Ochoa, who all won twice here.  They also fell in love with Anneka Sorenstam and Laura Davies along the way.  Yes, it was a great tounament for many years.

That all seems so long ago.

Last year I said pretty much the same thing, but I made a mistake.  I made a mistake in phrasing what I meant to say.  I said last year that the local tour event was suffering from a real lack of interest over the last few years because of the preponderance of foreigners (specifically asians) on the tour.  

It was a controversial opinion.  It was an opinion that got my ass fired amidst a national controversy.  It was an opinion that got me booked on numerous national radio shows to talk about my opinion and my firing because of it.  It was an opinion that still to this day makes dozens of twitter followers of my column think I am a horrible racist.  It was an opinion that, when people have met me over the past year, most have shared with me, and most are shocked that I was fired over it.  It was an opinion that, for better or worse, changed my life.

A year has now passed, and you know what?  I still have the same opinion.  I would change one thing about it though–the wording of it.  What I should have said is this:  The LPGA is suffering with waning popularity because there are not enough dominant AMERICAN golfers!  

That fact has hurt the interest level here in Rochester, and I’m sure it is affecting the interest level in most other AMERICAN cities.  As for Rochester, it has nothing to do with what the tournament is called, whether it’s a major or not or what course it is played at.  It has just not been the same since the 90’s or earlier.  Why?  Because of the lack of sucess of American golfers, plain and simple.

Take a look at the winners of the Rochester LPGA tour stop since 2000.  The first year it was a major, 2010, American Christie Kerr won it.  Since then, there has been a winner from Taiwan, a winner from China and one from South Korea.  Prior to 2010, when it was just the Wegmans LPGA yearly tour stop, only ONE US golfer won, and her name was Kim Saiki, in 2004.  You have to go back to 2000 to find another American born winner of the event and that was Meg Mallon.  

That’s THIRTEEN local LPGA events in Rochester, and only TWO US citizens who have won.  Three for fourteen if you include Mallon.

That is why I said what I said last year.  It has nothing to do with racism.  It has to do with a sinking ship in this country, and the LPGA’s misplaced aggression towards the future.  By continuing to turn their back on the real problem, they will continue to see declining popularity in this country.

It is the same thing with tennis.  Tennis used to be a big deal.  A HUGE deal!  Back in the 70’s and 80’s and into the 90’s.  Back in the day when Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Pete Sampras, Jim Courier  and Andre Agassi were dominating the grass, clay and hardcourts.  Now, no one cares about tennis.  Why?  Because there hasn’t been a halfway decent American male tennis player since 1997 and only the Williams sisters have saved the country from complete embarrassment the last decade and a half.

The game of womens golf is headed down the same road, and the people in charge continue to have the blinders on as to reasons why.  The tour bosses would rather watch their tour fade away into oblivion, than do anything to address the issue.

I understand the LPGA tour is an international tour, and there are events held in other countries, but at tour events held on US soil, why can’t the tour think about restricting the number of foreign players in each event?  The Japanese baseball league does it, and no one calls them anti-American racists.  In Japanese baseball, each team may not have more than four foreign players in their active lineup, including the pitcher.  They can have one foreign pitcher and three position players, but that’s it.  Why do they do this, do you think?  Because they realize that Japanese fans like to cheer for Japanese players!!!  

It’s not rocket science folks.  Call me a racist all you want, but I stand by my contention that it does no one any good when nine of the top ten finishers of most LPGA events in US cities are South Koreans and if the fans are lucky, maybe Paula Creamer sneaks in there.  When you watch the Olympics, don’t you cheer for the Americans???  When did it become a crime to be a proud American?

The LPGA Championship is moving onto a rotation of courses in and around New York City.  They are going to get way more money from corporate sponsorships, and raise the purses.  That will be great for the Koreans and other asian golfers, who’d love nothing more than taking all the American dollars they can get, and taking them back home to convert into their national currency to spend there.  Meanwhile, the scores will plummet as these women golfers try to play Shinnecock Hills or Winged Foot or Westchester Country Club, and while the events will be televised by ESPN and other larger networks, fans will surely see more birds and squirrels taking in the event than actual fans.

The LPGA tour took the money grab, and in doing so, they are turning their backs on the good fans that actually still care about watching the event here in Rochester.  They say it will be good for women’s golf.  I say it will backfire by showing the whole country of the United States what the tour has become–a tour that is dominated by foreigners–and that no one is attending the event.

I used to love the local LPGA tour stop.  That was a long time ago.  Now, I can fondly wave goodbye.

As a matter of fact, I wish the LPGA tour had left Rochester two years ago.  I’d still have a job.