Published: June 29, 2009 12:24 am      

HERTZEL COLUMN - Players Cup remains on solid footing

BRIDGEPORT — A golfing month or so ago, which would be Tuesday or Wednesday of last week in real time, the realization began to spread that the Nationwide Players Cup, the first million-dollar sporting event in West Virginia, had been discounted down to a $600,000 purse.

The coal industry, which had been the title sponsor of the event for three years, apparently was spending too much defending itself from the evil Darryl Hannah and withdrew much of its support while Gov. Joe Manchin, living up to his promise to cut spending, took 100 grand of state money out of the till.

To complicate matters, all of this transpired late, about two months before the tournament was to be played, too late to go out and raise new sponsors for this year.

The tournament, that would seem to indicate, was in some kind of trouble, which was not good news for those who realized that this had brought national publicity to the state while also having an economic impact of $6- to $8-million on the North Central West Virginia area.

To take even more shine off the tournament, the Golf Channel decided to showcase the tournament not live, but on tape with Sunday’s final round airing at 7 p.m. and rerun at midnight.

Public relations-wise, this was not a very flattering picture but Tim McNeely, the tournament director, says that the picture may have been Photoshopped and that the future of the tournament is more solid than that may indicate.

“We’re just going to start over,” McNeely said Sunday before his sixth tournament finished as an artistic success, to say nothing of also being a meteorological success. “The Tour picked West Virginia for a lot of reasons (for the Players Cup) — the Pete Dye Golf Club course, the way we developed the tournament the first four years. There has been no discussion of losing the tournament or having it move elsewhere.”

Nor should there be. Short of West Virginia football and basketball, this has become one of the state's premiere events, an event that could lay the groundwork for even bigger things in future years.

McNeely simply believes the financial shortcomings were a sign of the times.

“It’s a 2009 issue,” McNeely said. “It’s the economy.”

Certainly anyone who is having trouble balancing his or her budget can sympathize not only with the promoters of the event but the sponsors who cut back on their support.

“The Tour loves West Virginia and loves this golf course,” McNeely noted. “They have done everything they can to reassure us they will be here.”

There is something else that reassures McNeely and that is a contract with his management company which runs for two more years, giving them time to rebuild their sponsorships.

“It looks like there are some new opportunities emerging that we will try to take advantage of,” McNeely said.

Translated that means alternate sponsors to the coal industry have begun showing interest in sponsoring the event in future years.

The sponsorship money cut down on the players’ prize money by 40 percent and that probably hurt the strength of the field to some degree. It did not hurt the bottom line for the tournament, however.

“We shattered records,” McNeely said. “Our charity ticket sales exceeded $140,000. Last year they were just past $80,000. And this year the concessions were taken over by the United Way. That means we’ll have over $150,000 raised for charity, which is more than ever.”

McNeely wasn’t even upset about the time slot his tournament had on the Golf Channel.

“Last year we had the highest rating of any Nationwide tournament (when it was shown live) but I’m not sure it isn’t better to be in prime time,” McNeely said.

Now that this year’s tournament is over, McNeely and his group will begin putting the pieces back together again.

“We’ll get back after it,” he said. “We’ll change our structure a little so we can adapt.”

Contact Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.