Evaluating The European Tour's "Turbulent Year"

On the eve of this week's BMW Championship at Wentworth (where the automaker just re-signed for four more years), James Corrigan presents a thoughtful analysis of the last (turbulent) year of the European Tour.

There was Sergio serving up his fried chicken remark, George O'Grady piling on with his "colored" reference, problems with the final series in Dubai's format, the Ballesteros brothers bickering with the tour, and most recently, caddie Iain McGregor's passing on the course.

I put this to O’Grady on Monday at the announcement of BMW’s four-year extension to their mega-millioned contract with the Tour. It should have been a time of celebration, but his eyes and countenance told a different story. O’Grady knew McGregor personally and had shared a drink or two with him. “I’ll have to live with the decision for the rest of my life,” he told me.

O’Grady plainly does not believe that tragedy should be bunched together with any of the other perceived controversies which rocked the Tour. He is right. It shouldn’t be. As he is right in his assertion that with the final series and Ballesteros sagas, the negative headlines sold. “Good news doesn’t always make the news,” O’Grady said.

Corrigan goes on to look at the positives for the tour, where commercial success was evident despite the Eurozone crisis.