THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609150176
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
DATELINE: GAINESVILLE, VA. LENGTH: 76 lines
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem is riding a rocket, and don't think he doesn't know it. Golf is here, there and everywhere you look, and everybody from tattooed kids to the traditional plaid armies are tearing up courses, in more ways than one.
Michael Jordan plays. Charles Barkley plays. That Hootie and the Blowfish guy plays. Alice Cooper and his snake play. If you're high-profile and you don't play, you're passe.
This is some of what makes life good for Finchem, a 49-year-old graduate of Virginia Beach's Princess Anne High School. This is also what can furrow his brow.
``There's sort of an aura about the sport,'' Finchem said Saturday at The Presidents Cup, where the Internationals teed off on the U.S. for an afternoon ambush that made the Cup a 10 1/2-9 1/2 contest in favor of the Americans entering today's 12 singles matches.
``When the perception is so strong that golf is on the upsurge, I think all of us in golf feel a lot of pressure to perform. The challenge is to make sure we keep the game and the integrity of the game where it's always been.''
Finchem has wrestled that bear since June of 1994, when he became the PGA Tour's third commissioner. But challenge and achievement have been part of Finchem's journey through his days at the University of Richmond, law school at U.Va., as a South Hampton Roads attorney and then an adviser to President Jimmy Carter.
Having the ear of a president seems like a pretty cool thing. So why am I confident that significantly more people, mostly those whose wardrobes run to polo shirts and spiked shoes, would consider running the PGA Tour a dreamier job?
``Dream is not the word that leaps to mind,'' Finchem said, ``but it's a very rewarding job when the players react positively to what you're trying to do. On the other hand, it's demanding, stressful, there's a lot of travel and I have small children. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'd say I love this work, it's just not a picnic.''
The Presidents Cup is one of those things that's been well-received so far within the ranks and by the public. Turning it into the ``ultra-premier'' event he thinks it can be, however, is among Finchem's next challenges.
That won't be any party, either.
Change is in the air. The 1998 Presidents Cup is bound to uproot from the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, home of its first two editions, to help boost its appeal overseas. Choosing the right places is critical.
Paying the 24 elite players who compete will probably become an issue at some point as well. Now, the Americans essentially compete out of the goodness of their hearts, save $10,000 and expenses, though they get to designate a hefty portion of the proceeds - more than $750,000 in '94 - to charities.
And American TV coverage could suffer if the Cup changes hemispheres, creating monumental network expense and making same-day or live broadcasts unlikely.
``I'm not sure how well live golf from, say, Australia, would go over at 11 p.m.,'' an unnamed CBS official said this week. ``I'm really not sure if we would do an event like that.''
All he can do, Finchem said, is foster the right environment for the players and hope they make it a must for public consumption. It took the Ryder Cup, the event upon which the Presidents Cup is based, 50 years to reach that point, said Finchem.
The Presidents Cup could cement itself in a fraction of that time, he said, especially if the spectacular level of play taking place this weekend becomes a given.
``If you have great players in memorable situations, they accumulate to give you sort of a body, a feel, a texture for an event, that you just can't manufacture,'' Finchem said. ``If the players continue to commit, and it's a big commitment and sacrifice on their part to do one of these things, that texture is just a function of time.''
It's been 18 years since Finchem left Virginia Beach - his parents and two siblings still live there - for Washington, where he started working with the PGA Tour as a marketing consultant a decade ago. He joined the Tour in '87 as an executive and succeeded Deane Beman as commissioner seven years later.
Ever since, Finchem's succeeded remarkably at guiding golf through the mass market and into the mosh pit. by CNB