Florida Schedule Logjam Facing Addition Of The Players, Too

As the Florida swing takes a bit of a schedule hit with two WGC's out of state, the consternation over stars passing up starts so close to the Masters has some trying to find a solution.

It's an important matter given that these are the largest audiences of the year outside of majors and for the PGA Tour's best to be seen as not playing enough isn't ideal. As Rex Hoggard points out after talking to many players, the solutions get even more difficult to grasp if The Players moves from May back to March.

Sliding the WGC-Mexico Championship to the end of the West Coast swing would help. Officials last week in Mexico said that would be their first option for the event and it would add a week between WGCs to help alleviate some of the scheduling concerns and return the historic flow to the Florida swing.

But that does little to address the broader scheduling questions, particularly if The Players, the Tour’s marquee event, returns to its old date in March, which is an option that’s being considered by the Tour.

Having the Match Play so close to the Masters is already an issue for some players. Trying to shoehorn the game’s “fifth major” into the neighborhood without a dramatic overhaul will only make things worse.

Meanwhile Will Gray talks to Ernie Els about the number of top ranked players skipping the Arnold Palmer Invitational this year and he blames the many schedule options.

More curious to me though was the suggestion that players skipping WGC events in favor of Mr. Palmer's event would wreak havoc. Are we talking fines? Threatening phone calls from tour VP's? What do the WGC's have that so scares players into skipping one, as Henrik Stenson is about to do with the match play?

“The purse is up, but then the Tour has put in a World Golf Championship event last week, and guys need to rest,” Els said at the Valspar Championship. “Then there’s a WGC event after API, and then two weeks later you’ve got the Masters. So all of a sudden, you’ve got all these big events, and if they don’t play the world events then all hell breaks loose.”

“We all absolutely respect what Mr. Palmer did, but I get the guys that just can’t play that week,” he said. “You’ve got certain priorities that you have to try to meet, and some of the guys just can’t do that. So you’ve got to take that for what it is. It’s no disrespect to Mr. Palmer.”