Hyundai Tournament of Champions: Tour Must Make Rules to Bring in Big Names

In a bad economy, companies need a reason to do something like sponsor a golf tournament. It's not a cheap proposition, and any company needs to have some confidence that their investment will have a return. That return comes from good ratings and good attendance and eventually purchasing of the products. 

So, with all due respect to the players that are playing in the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, I am left a little frustrated with some of the names that aren't there. And yes, I know that you had to have won an official event the year before, so Tiger Woods is not eligible. But take a look at some other omissions. 

Charl Schwartzel, Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke: What do they all have in common? Not only are they all major winners from last season, but none of these players are going to be participating in Hawaii this week. The same goes for World No. 1 Luke Donald and No. 5 Adam Scott.

And it's not just the foreign players. Americans like Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson would both add intrigue to the event, but neither are there. 

This is a serious problem that the tour needs to get control of. That means that they need to start mandating that players go to some events, at least once every couple of years. Sponsors and potential sponsors need to at least have the belief that the big names might show up in any given year. When the big names show up, the money follows. 

Take a look at this tournament. Again, I realize that the potential field is somewhat limited. But if you think about it, players that are winning in one year are going to be a draw the next. Tiger isn't eligible this year, but rarely played when he was. 

Look at all the sponsors that this tournament has gone through. 

1991-1993	Infiniti Tournament of Champions
1994-2006	Mercedes Champions
2007-2009	Mercedes-Benz Championship
2010	SBS Championship
2011-Present	Hyundai Tournament of Champions

Not all of those years came in a bad economy. Still, the tournament lost sponsorship, and this is not the only one that has.

I understand the reservations about telling players that they have to play in a given tournament at least once over a specific period of time. Maybe one player will plan on playing in the last year of his window, but then will be hit with an injury, or genuine emergency. That needs to be considered, but it's not a reason for not doing it. There are always waivers and provisions to get around problems like that.

The bigger problem, I suppose, is that this would in effect be the tour having a great amount of control over the lives of their players. I get that concern, but this is easily for the betterment of the game. If you don't put a rule like this in, then sponsorship and eventually tournaments go away. In no way is that good for the advancement of the sport.

The tour has no choice but to bring some rules in that force the hands of all players to play in tournaments they're eligible to be a part of. Without it, those players will continue to play a highly limited, selective schedule. That's something they could still do in this system, only skipping different tournaments every year. Ideally, they would stagger off weeks, big names playing every week. 

Without something to force the hand of the players, basically any tournaments that's not a major, played on a major course, a WGC Event, the Players Championship and Tour Championship will continue to bring in limited fields. 

When that happens, the development of the game around both the country and world will be stunted. Casual fans need to be attracted. The only way to do that is to bring them the names they're familiar with. 

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