Riviera Wants 2009 Presidents Cup
/Doug Ferguson reports that Riviera is begging interested in hosting the 2009 Presidents Cup.
"They're keenly interested in taking a look at this," said Michael Bodney, senior vice president of championship management for the PGA Tour. "It's all very preliminary, but they unsolicited wrote us a letter to host it."
"One thing they don't utilize are those lower tennis courts. There's a lot of room down there, and there seems to be enough room for a good TV compound."
One other issue was local interest. The gallery was noticeably thin during the '95 PGA Championship.
"You wonder about the L.A. market," Bodney said. "You've seen what's happened the last two majors, and that causes you to stand back a little bit."
Quotes in Thomas Bonk's LA Times story would indicate that this is a non-story.
Bodney said Riviera is big enough to handle the staging issues of a big-time event, such as corporate hospitality areas and a television compound, but he said he was concerned that the market wouldn't respond.
"I can take this event to 10 or 15 places and I know for sure 25,000 or 30,000 people will show up. I don't know if that's going to happen in L.A.," Bodney said. "We can't afford to have a dud. We can go to a lot of places and I know it's not going to be a dud."
