I write whilst watching the HSBC Abu Dhabi Championship where Rory McIlroy and a raft of Englishmen are performing impressively well. This is the first of four Rolex Series events. From the amount of hype and promotion given to the Rolex Series you would be inclined to think it is something important and meaningful, not least because Keith Pelley, the Chief Executive of The European Tour proudly proclaims at every opportunity what a “game-changer” the Series is. When announcing the new schedule for 2021 he was quick to emphasise this point. It’s no coincidence of course that he was responsible for instigating it. When it was launched, the target was to have eight tournaments designated as part of “The Series”. This was achieved. None of these was a new tournament, indeed most of them were very well established and well attended ones. Others, like the Italian Open and the Turkish Airlines Open enjoyed the massive increase in prize money that went with the appellation, but they failed to attract enough of the big name players, as required by the contract with Rolex and they have reverted to ‘standard’ tournaments.
This all started when Rolex, long time supporters of the Tour with a large cash pile, were persuaded that by bumping up prize funds dramatically to $7m (now $8m) at a number of special championships, they would get fantastic publicity and attract the best players from around the world. Unfortunately, what was devised meant nothing. There is no league table or reward for excellence other than winning big money at a specific event. In other words the rich are getting considerably richer, with the only saving grace being that there is more money to go around for the lesser players as well. In the main, global players have not been attracted just because a particular tournament is now Rolex Series, indeed the Tour has been forced to pay money back to Rolex on a number of occasions because the field didn’t attract the contracted number of top players.
This season, the “game-changer” is down to just four tournaments starting in Abu Dhabi. This is a tournament which has always been one of the best, long before “The Rolex” came along. It’s always attracted a world class field because it’s played on a really good course, in beautiful weather, in February, when there’s a dearth of good golf anyway and the oil rich Sheikhs are happy to shell out large sums in appearance money. None of that has changed. Indeed since HSBC have been the title sponsor it’s got even better and they, like BMW and other big sponsors have been irked by the amount of attention and publicity that has been given to Rolex, often at their expense.
The other three Rolex Series championships are: The Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open, a tournament that for many years has been played the week before The Open Championship and for years under Barclays title sponsorship was played on a gem of a course at Loch Lomond, attracting a truly top class international field; The BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, which is the Tour’s flagship event and needs no hype, with BMW laying on a spectacular championship; and The DP World Tour Championship in Dubai at the end of the season. This is a field limited to the top sixty on the season long Race to Dubai (the old Order of Merit) and has nothing to do with The Rolex Series other than you have a better chance of being in the top sixty if you’ve played really well in one of those three previous tournaments. Indeed you could argue that it gives an unfair weighting. It already had a very large prize fund.
All of this goes to prove what can be achieved with PR, propaganda, bombast and frankly obfuscating reality with a smokescreen of very dubious claims. The Tour now owns and runs the TV broadcasts and can dictate what goes out. It means that even on Sky TV we are being fed a constant stream of bullshit about the significance of these tournaments. Gone are the good old days of objective broadcasting, where the BBC and others wouldn’t have allowed themselves to be conned by such propaganda. It is a con. I have never understood why it couldn’t have been made a more meaningful series, so that there was an incentive to play in more than one, with potentially a very large pot of gold at the end for the most successful? There may be a good reason, but I never got a good answer to the question. The fact of the matter is anyway that almost all the top players organise their schedules around the four Major Championships and the four World Golf Championships which are one step down from the Majors. (Plus the Olympics this year).
What is worth shouting about is the fact that the Tour has a really good schedule this year with some new tournaments and some re-invigorated old ones, in a much more logical and efficient order, which will serve the membership well. I earned part of my living for a long time as a commentator on the European Tour. I most certainly mean it no ill, in fact exactly the opposite. In difficult times I wish it all the very best. But please, let’s be honest with the viewers and spectators, because if you aren’t, people will quickly learn to trust nothing you say. You only have to look at China and Russia to understand that.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 