Pebble Beach and why pro-ams on the tour schedule are outdated

First, a round-up of the weekend's news and action and an update of my status.

Phil Mickelson swept to victory for the third time in his career at the Phoenix Open over the weekend. He had the opportunity to create history on three separate occasions during the tournament with a putt for 59 lipping out on Thursday, he made a double-bogey at the 18^th on Friday to miss out on shooting the lowest 36-hole score in PGA Tour history and his 28-under-par score was the equal lowest score to par for 72 holes on the PGA Tour. The event itself also missed out on the overall attendance record but did set the record for a single-day attendance at a golf tournament on the Saturday, with 179,022 people visiting TPC Scottsdale to watch Mickelson shoot another superb 64 on his way to a convincing win on Sunday.

Mickelson's win followed Tiger Woods' win last week at the Farmers Insurance Open and the season continues to bubble ahead of the first World Golf Championship of the season in three weeks time. In Dubai Stephen Gallacher completed a British clean sweep of the Middle East Swing as he won by three shots from Richard Sterne, a dramatic tournament featured low scoring all week in the unusually cool and damp weather including a first round 62 from Sterne and a first round 63 and third round 62 from Gallacher. The Scot holed out for eagle at the par 4 17^th to clinch victory, his first in 8 years. The eagle was one of five Gallacher had throughout the week in a win which has seen him rise to 60^th in the world rankings and on course to secure his place in the first WGC of 2013 at Dove Mountain in Arizona.

The Middle East Swing was another successful period for the European Tour, with the lesser lights outshining the big boys once again, and the outcome of all three tournaments uncertain until the final green. Abu Dhabi saw the announcement of Rory McIlroy as a Nike Athlete, a tournament in which both Tiger Woods and McIlroy miss the cut and Welshman Jamie Donaldson claiming a second European Tour title. Qatar proved to be arguably the most dramatic week of the three with George Coetzee and Sergio Garcia both birdieing the final hole before Chris Wood made eagle to win by one shot, it was Wood's first European Tour win and he is also in line to play in the WGC-Accenture Match Play in Arizona. Gallacher's win completed the series in what was the weakest field ever assembled for the Dubai Desert Classic, the classic is now by far the third best event in the Middle East Swing, a worry surely for the European Tour.

Over the weekend I was in St Andrews attempting to secure a return to the Home of Golf to work, I was greeted by icy cold weather and on the Monday bizarre scenes of snow drifting across the Old Course at a rapid speed. I stayed in the hostel and managed to watch a couple of hours play from the Phoenix Open on the television but didn't catch any of the action from Dubai.

Courtesy of a friend I was able to go inside the clubhouse of the St Andrews Golf Club, which stands alongside the 18^th hole on the Old Course and forms part of the dramatic town backdrop to the finish of the world's most famous stretch of links land.

On the Friday I attended a recruitment day to find out more information on seasonal jobs working for St Andrews Links, and on Saturday I went up to the Fairmont Hotel to apply for any jobs which match my skills and experience and on Monday I attended a recruitment event at a new restaurant opening in the town. Hopefully I can return to the town this year because it will open many doors and enable me to make my blog even more colourful and interesting.

Whilst I was in St Andrews I had several hours discussing a project which I cannot yet reveal but if it comes to fruition you will hear about it here first.

My journey home was accompanied by dramatic snowy scenes throughout Scotland and the North of England.

We are now in week six of the worldwide golf season and this week the attention of the golfing world moves to the iconic Monterrey Peninsula and the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-am, the oldest major pro-am tournament in the world and a tournament with a roll of honour which includes the greatest names of the game. 76 years ago Bing Crosby hosted the first National Pro-am Golf Championship at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, California, from 1947 onwards it was played on three courses and has included Pebble Beach Golf Links in its rotation in every year since. The current rotation includes Spyglass Hill, Monterey Peninsula Country Club and the Pebble Beach Golf Links, there have been rumours that the iconic Cypress Point may return to the rotation in the next couple of years. Sam Snead won 4, Phil Mickelson won his fourth last year, Nelson and Hogan won it once, Mangrum, Middlecoff and Casper won two titles, Nicklaus won three, Watson won two, Crenshaw and Tiger Woods won once, Johnny Miller won three, Hale Irwin, Tom Kite and Paul Azinger won once, Payne Stewart and Vijay Singh claimed solitary victories and Mark O'Meara has won a record five Pebble Beach pro-am titles.

As a professional tournament his championship ranks among the greatest in golf history but does it still need the pro-am element? Each regular PGA Tour event has at least one pro-am on a Tuesday or Wednesday which the leading players in the field compete in with celebrities and amateurs, meaning approximately 32 pro-ams each season so why do the professional tours still need pro-ams on their schedule? Surely a strokeplay championship at Pebble Beach is enough for the tour, it would still gain exposure because of its beautiful location and the event would still thrive without a pro-am element.

Pebble Beach isn't the only pro-am on the tour schedule. The Bob Hope Classic followed in 1960 with the same format played over three courses in the Palm Springs desert in California, both events were crucial to the development of golf and increasing its popularity at the start of the television boom in the sport, and both remain on the PGA Tour schedule in 2013. In 1983 the Las Vegas desert staged another pro-am, initially called the Panasonic Las Vegas Pro-Celebrity Classic and then known for the best years of the event as the Las Vegas Invitational. The tournament has in recent years been hosted by the pop superstar Justin Timberlake and the PGA Tour's biggest Pro-am tournaments have always been associated with celebrity golfers and have flourished with celebrity golfers playing in the tournaments with the games biggest names on golf courses in a sunny location. The European Tour's big pro-am tournament is the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship which was established in 2001 as a successor to the Alfred Dunhill Cup, it is played over three courses in the East of Scotland; The Old Course at St Andrews, Kingsbarns Golf Links and the Championship course at Carnoustie Golf Links host celebrities across the world and the European Tour's leading golfers each October.

In many people's opinions the European Tour made a big mistake in replacing the Alfred Dunhill Cup with the Pro-am Alfred Dunhill Links Championship but it was a sponsors decision, and you can understand why they chose this format so that they can connect with their target market with their high-end menswear products. Major pro-am events make sense for sponsors, they can connect directly with potential high-profile stars who could endorse their product and not just high-profile golfers, but athletes from other sports, pop stars and members of the media.

It can be argued however that sponsors can do this by recruiting high-profile stars to play in the weekly pro-am connected to the tournament rather than stage a pro-am over four or five days as a tour event. In my opinion watching television coverage of the Pebble Beach, Palm Springs or St Andrews pro-ams is not entertaining, I can see the benefits of it for sponsors but I highly doubt the relevance of the events to growing the game in this era when this generation can get access to famous people on a daily basis via social media. By having this ability to connect with famous people instantly they wouldn't need to see the famous person playing golf to become impacted by the said famous person to play a sport that they are playing. So I doubt very much the impact upon golf participation the likes of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-am has. Over 30,000 people turned up to watch Michael Jordan play with Tiger Woods in the Wednesday pro-am of the Wells Fargo Championship a few years ago, this would have had the same impact that a four-day pro-am tournament would have and I don't believe that the pro-ams are attractive to golf fans and I think the television ratings would prove this.

Seeing golf being played badly in person is bad enough but watching it live on television is just cringe-worthy and not good entertainment. I would much rather see a larger field of top class professionals from all over the world competing over three beautiful courses than a field including famous stars from other sports and the world of music and media hitting every bad shot under the sun. The current field includes 156 professionals and 156 amateurs, to me the event would be more enjoyable and completely unique if it featured 212 professionals from all of the major tours (150 PGA Tour, 50 European Tour, 25 Japan Golf Tour, 25 Asian Tour, 25 Sunshine Tour, 25 PGA Tour of Australasia, 6 from Web.com Tour, 3 from PGA Tour Canada and 3 from PGA Tour Latinoamerica) and the event would have global appeal and importance. But the PGA Tour is the most introverted league in all of sport and there will never be any chance of a fully co-sanctioned event on American soil in the near future.

I am sure that pro-ams will continue long into the future but it should be remembered that without the intervention of the Clinton Foundation the Bob Hope Classic would not exist and should AT&T ever decide to end their agreement with the PGA Tour for the Pebble Beach event it will be interesting to see if the tournament continues in its current guise. I personally would like to see the Wednesday pro-ams take precedent over four-day pro-ams on the tour and they should be given greater status. The Wednesday pro-am could award points towards a bonus pool over the season in a similar competition to the now discontinued Kodak Challenge and the Wednesday pro-am could be broadcast live on the Golf Channel in the US and Sky Sports in the UK etc in a special programme setting up coverage of the full event, miking up the golfers and amateurs and showing the course from different angles, this could prove a very entertaining alternative to the four-day “snooze fest” that is the pro-am on the PGA Tour and European Tour schedule.

My next blog will be posted on Monday, previewing the Northern Trust Open. A bonus blog will be published on Tuesday looking at the emergence of Indian golf including the Avantha Masters and the Indian Premier League golf competition featuring Darren Clarke.