Northern Trust Hostage Crisis Enters Day Three: Media Steps In To Defend Tour And Sponsors

Isn't it wonderful seeing everyone get along, and more importantly, sticking up for the PGA Tour as a viable and reasonable marketing tool. Well, until it has to stick up for itself.

John Powers says Northern Trust should give back the TARP money and keep on sponsoring golf tournaments.

Garry Smits takes Maureen Dowd and TMZ to task for stretching key facts and writes that TMZ should have stuck to what it knows -- Jessica Simpson's weight or whether Jennifer Anniston still pines away for Brad.

Andrew Malcolm says a conservative watchdog group wants to know more about the relationship between Northern Trust and the Obama's.

And Ron Sirak really lays into the Dowd column, doing the PGA Tour's job of laying out talking points to defend golf sponsorship (okay, maybe minus the Tiffany trinket bags for a while, eh?).

That there is much reform needed in the U.S. economy seems to be indisputable. The business practices of the financial services industry, in particular, need serious scrutiny. No one can argue with that. But the scope of the problem extends well beyond professional golf tournaments and entertaining at those events. To rip golf is an ill-informed, easy way out -- a smokescreen retarding real reform.

What seems to be happening is that golf has become a convenient scapegoat for frustrated pundits and politicians who rely on the fact that an ill-informed public can be manipulated. Golf is not the enemy here, nor is the PGA Tour. The sport, in fact, is an extremely effective and cost-efficient marketing tool.