A Good Deed Tarnished

This week, the PGA Tour comes to New Orleans for the Zurich Classic. The Tournament marks the return of the Tour to the area following the Hurricane Katrina disaster last year. In the grand scheme of things, this event is really just a welcome diversion from the difficulty of everyday life for those people in the area that are trying to rebuild their lives in the wake of a horrific event.

This truth could not have been illustrated better than by The Golf Channel special "Golf Chronicles: After Katrina," hosted by Richer Lerner. (If TGC re-runs the show, I highly encourage you to watch it.) The special detailed the devastation in the Gulf region caused by Katrina and the role that golf, as a form of leisure, has played in the recovery effort.

The show presented a reality that is difficult for most Americans to imagine is possible in this country. Victims are living in tents, without electricity, and facing a lack of community organization and aide that seem more likely to happen in a developing country than ours. This week's Zurich Classic really serves as a break for some of the people in the region from their daily struggle to return to some sense of normalcy — something which is unlikely to happen for years.

If you were to read about the Tournament this week on PGATour.com, though, you would see that the Tour appears to be using the event as a way to pat itself on the back. In its Tour Insider feature, PGATour.com describes the tournament using language that just seems inappropriate for this week.

The opening sentence of the column says that the Zurich Classic "might be one of the most important" events on the 2006 schedule. From a golfing standpoint, that is obviously not true. Given the field, though, which has a stronger than usual field compared to previous years, the players themselves see the importance of participating in the Tournament.

This is especially true of David Toms, a native of the region, who has donated lots of money and volunteered significant time in the hopes of helping his hometown rebuild. Masters champion Phil Mickelson, Retief Goosen, and Vijay Singh will be there. Tiger Woods is noticeably absent, but can be given a pass because of the fragile state of his father's health. Were this the only cliché, self-aggrandizing sentence in the article, then I would have been satisfied.

The writer, though, frames the tournament's return to English Turn for the event as symbolic of what the tournament means to the region. The event was initially to be held at the TPC of Louisiana, but because of severe damage to the course, the event was moved back to English Turn. Commissioner Finchem is quoted in the column as saying, "We are proud that we committed last November to bring the tournament back to New Orleans for 2006, even though we knew it would be a challenge and that we would have to change venues."

Oh, the pain. Finchem's words really seem to trivialize what is going on everyday in the Gulf region. People are working hard and struggling to get back on their feet, but the Commish seems to feel particularly proud that they were able to find a serviceable golf course to host a tournament this year. Let's throw a party!

The column goes on to laud the Tour for being the "first major sports organization to commit its return to New Orleans for 2006," calling it a "win-win gesture in the midst of tremendous hardship and loss." Having a tournament in New Orleans is a gesture — a hand out? What a gesture of immaculate benevolence of the Tour to decide to hold a tournament in the region. The Tour should be quietly commended for deciding to hold an event in New Orleans, but the emphasis should be on quietly.

Other professional sports in the city were not fully able to function and did not this season because of infrastructure issues — everyone knows what the Superdome looked like on the inside after housing thousands following the hurricane. The Tour did not turn away from the city, though they wavered. This is not a time to exploit that decision, though. In fact, there is never a time to exploit that decision. There are many more courageous things going on everyday by volunteers of the Red Cross and other key organizations. The language of the article almost seems to place the Zurich Classic in that class of action. I'm sorry, but that is just not true.

This column may seem like an exercise in semantics. It could be argued that the PGATour.com column is just a bunch of words on a webpage. It is not just that, though. This column is representative of the rhetoric that the PGA Tour is using about this week — as though the Tour is doing New Orleans a favor for holding the tournament. The public record shows that the PGA Tour has a history of charitable giving and philanthropy that is unsurpassed by any other professional sports organization. Last year, the Tour passed the $1 billion figure in total giving over the life of the organization — and New Orleans has been a beneficiary of that philanthropy over the life of Tour events in the area to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That is to be commended, but not now and not in this way.

After all, the PGA Tour is a non-profit organization — it was designed and founded with charity as part of its mission. The Tour is just doing what it already does and has done very well. The Tour can be proud of that accomplishment and its desire to continue to bring professional golf to New Orleans. But that accomplishment is no better than what millions of individuals Americans have been and are doing to help the people of the Gulf. Pro golf in New Orleans is nothing compared to the daily incremental achievements that citizens and volunteers are making in literally rebuilding a city and a region.

I hope that you, the reader, do not mistake me here. Dave Shedloski is in a difficult situation as a writer that I do not envy. Shedloski has to acknowledge the reality of the situation and does so. He also has to toe the line of being an objective columnist and maintain his allegiance to the PGA Tour and its public relations goals — to make the Tour look good whenever it can, even in this situation. It would be difficult for any writer in his shoes to not write an article that comes across as it did to me, especially given the constantly frustrating comments made by Commissioner Finchem. In this case, Shedloski is in the vice of a tough assignment during a week that golf fans will be assaulted with pieces with much worse undertones. (Who knew that 500 words could be so hard?)

Further, the Tour is doing a good thing by coming to town this week to put on a show for the golf fans there. Hopefully, the tournament will be well-attended, enjoyable, and a complete success from an entertainment, charitable, and symbolic perspective. I just cannot understand the need to use a reasonably good action as a means of self-promotion and bragging. Life continues in New Orleans and in the Gulf region everyday. The PGA Tour should consider itself just another part of that continuation, rather than commend itself as a special exception to it.

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