Opinion by Dan Vukelich, Sun Country Editor
Just like the banking industry, professional golf is due for a major correction and it’s about to get bloody.
On the horizon: dropped sponsorships, anemic Tour events, reduced purses and continuing erosion of TV viewership. Click here for an earlier post on the Wall Street Journal’s take on the future of PGA Tour sponsorships.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the PGA Tour is learning a bitter lesson that the LPGA Tour has already learned — that sponsorships are going to be a hard sell in 2010.
Now that it’s clear the economy will remain in the tank and Tiger Woods will be somewhere other than on TV, the Journal reported that title sponsorship for the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines this week — what used to be called the Buick — went for half of what it did last year. Three 2010 PGA Tour events still don’t have lead sponsors.
