In a few days, some of the greatest golfers in the world will rendezvous at TPC Boston in Norton for the Deutsche Bank Championship.
They will talk about how important this tournament is on the PGA Tour schedule, how the Greater Boston area is a golfing hotbed and how the golf course is one of the greatest in the world.
It’s all lies. It’s all hype.
It is just another stop on the money train and many won’t know if they are near Bangkok or Boston. The only reason they are coming here is because of the $8 million purse and the FedEx points.
It’s all about the money and that’s all.
It’s an athletic carny show. Instead of the bearded, fat lady and the guy that can swallow swords, they have guys who can hit the ball from one zip code to another.
It’s about draining every piece of golf out of all the fans and all the corporations.
My, how far has the PGA Tour come in Massachusetts, even during this downturn in the economy.
We remember back to the time when Massachusetts had its first regular tour stop.
It was a time before huge corporate sponsors and huge TV contracts, when $200,000 tournament purses meant something.
It’s a time when pros traveled in automobiles from one tournament to another instead of private jets.
It’s ironic that less than an hour away from TPC Boston sits Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton, home of the PGA’s first tour stop in Massachusetts.
Professional golf came to Massachusetts in the mid-1960s, thanks to one person, Cosmo “Cuzzie” Mingolla, PV’s first owner.
Pleasant Valley might not have been the greatest golf course in the world, but it should rank among the top 25 in the state. However, it certainly was a perfect site to hold a professional tournament.
There was ample parking and from the clubhouse area, you could view eight of the 18 holes.
It was stadium golf before the PGA Tour conceptualized stadium golf.
It was a magnificent place to watch a tournament.
It had its own character. The hill at the side of the amazing par-4 17th green was perfect. It was rowdy, especially on a Sunday afternoon.
The gallery would hoot and holler and bet a few shekels on whether a particular golfer would make par or hit his approach into the water that fronted the green.
Furthermore, there was more interaction with the players.
The putting green was just an arms length from the fans.
It holds a special place in the lore of the tour. Champagne Tony Lema won here shortly before his untimely death in a plane crash. He was called Champagne Tony because when he won, he set up the pressroom with all the champagne they could drink afterward.
Then there was Tom Shaw, a good golfer and a great guy, who enjoyed partying as much as he did making birdies. When he won the tournament, he celebrated deep into the night.
On the Monday after the tournament, they found his winner’s check in a Worcester bar.
There have been naked girls jumping in the club’s swimming pool and many antics that did not make the newspapers.
It was a time when pro golfers where people, not corporations.
Problem was Pleasant Valley was not part of PGA Commissioner Dean Beman’s vision.
Beman wanted the PGA Tour to build its own golf courses and hold all of their events on their own golf courses.
He figured, ‘why give course owners part of the profits.’
That is how the TPC courses began.
Beman tried to purchase Pleasant Valley. Cuzzie’s son, Ted Mingolla, ran the course at the time, and he was stubborn.
He refused to acknowledge the future and would not sell to Beman.
First, Beman kept raising the purse requirements, $500,000, then $750,000 and finally over $1 million.
Mingolla went broke trying to keep the tournament. He made some poor choices at tournament sponsors and eventually lost his course.
Meanwhile, the PGA got what it wanted.
They built a TPC course in Norton and Beman’s vision is now reality.
Besides the Mingolla family, the biggest loser in the deal is the public.
TPC Boston is a lousy course; built on swampland fit for nothing, except, perhaps, mosquitoes.
The only difference between nearby Norton Country Club and TPC Boston is money sunk into the project.
The PGA Tour can throw plenty of perfume on its pig.
It is a lousy place to watch a tournament and you have to park off site and bus in.
Yes, you get the best players in the world coming to Norton, an $8 million purse and designating it as a FedEx event makes a world of difference.
But for the fan, there isn’t much.
Pleasant Valley offered so much more.
But it’s not about fan convenience.
It’s all about the money the PGA can grab.