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Commissioner Tim Finchem and Tiger Woods posed with a lot of trophies together and went into the World Golf Hall of Fame together as their career peaks coincided. (Stan Badz/PGA Tour)
ATLANTA — As is often noted when Tim Finchem’s tenure as PGA Tour commissioner is discussed, he was in the top chair when Tiger Woods came along and brought massive crowds, increased television ratings and the ensuing financial boon that enriched players and executives alike.
The general theme is that Finchem needed only to avoid disaster to enjoy a long run of success, which of course is overly simplistic. There were plenty of other difficult issues a leader had to navigate, including a serious recession in the 2008-09 timeframe that the commissioner handled without any financial harm to PGA Tour golfers and the circuit, never losing a sponsor or reducing a purse.
Global Golf Post on Monday published a letter written by Finchem’s wife, Holly, in which she revealed that Tim Finchem has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. GGP also reported that the Finchems donated $13 million to a new charitable initiative the PGA Tour is relaunching. It seems hard to believe that Finchem stepped down just 10 years ago after a 22-year run that saw plenty of growth and enhanced earnings for all players as Woods ascended in the game.
Perhaps less prominent was the role Finchem played early in his tenure, when he faced the threat of players leaving for a rival tour.
Sound familiar?
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Stray Shots: Musings on POY and ROY candidates
Well before LIV Golf there was the World Golf Tour, spearheaded by … Greg Norman.
It was Finchem who in 1994 thwarted Norman’s idea that was actually a mini version of what LIV has been for the past five years. And as LIV’s future is now in doubt after its last event concluded Sunday in Indianapolis, it is interesting to look back on what might have been nearly three decades sooner.
During his first full year as commissioner after succeeding Deane Beman, Finchem was immediately confronted with a threat of a rival big-money tour and guaranteed pay.
Norman was in the prime of his playing career, having won his second Open Championship in 1993. In 1994, he won the Players Championship and spent the season ranked either first or second in the Official World Golf Ranking.
The Shark had the backing of Fox Sports for an idea that would guarantee the top 30 players in the world a minimum of $290,000 a year and purses roughly double what they were playing for on the PGA Tour.
“This is about 30 years overdue,” Norman said at the time.
The idea was for there to be eight events in the United States, Canada, Scotland, Spain and Japan with 30 players taken from the world rankings and 10 others given exemptions.
Each event would have a $3 million purse — more than twice what as being offered for an average tour event at the time — with $600,000 going to the winner and $30,000 guaranteed for last place. The plan called for a $1 million bonus to the winner of a year-long individual competition. These money figures were considered huge for the time. (For a point of reference, a proposed Challenger Series event in 2028 — some 30-plus years later — would have a $4 million purse and $720,000 to the winner.)
“Everybody I’ve spoken to — Nick Price, Fred Couples, José María Olazábal — all the responses have been extremely positive,” Norman said then.
But Finchem made it clear that anyone who played for the World Golf Tour would be leaving the PGA Tour.
“If a new tour becomes a reality in 1995 or thereafter, our members will have to decide whether they want to continue to play on the PGA Tour or play on a new tour,” Finchem said, noting that the PGA Tour would enforce the “conflicting events” rules in place that required permission to play outside of the tour. He promised the tour would go to court to defend the rules.
Sound familiar?
“This is not dissimilar from the decision professional athletes in other sports were forced to make when competing leagues were formed,” Finchem said.
Norman was not prepared to fight the battle in court, as he didn’t have the backing of a sovereign wealth fund such as the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which supported LIV Golf starting in 2022 and decided it would no longer do so after this year. Later in 1994, at a player meeting, Arnold Palmer spoke up against the plan, effectively killing it.
So the Shark backed off — only to start a similar program some 30 years later as the commissioner of LIV Golf.
In 1997, Finchem announced the formation of the World Golf Championship events, which were to begin in 1999 and ended up running through 2022.
“I think it goes to show that I had the foresight, I had the knowledge of what makes the players tick, what makes the game of golf tick and what people are looking for,” said Norman, who called Finchem’s plan a “mirror image of what I proposed three years ago.”
While it wasn’t exactly the same — the WGCs were a series of three or four events within the PGA Tour schedule — Finchem did give Norman credit for his vision, even if the two mostly remained at odds for years.
The Presidents Cup, The First tee and the FedEx Cup were launched on Finchem’s watch. His legacy goes far beyond that 1994 showdown — as does Norman’s. But it remains an interesting point in Finchem’s time as a commissioner.
A new postseason is coming
PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp will have a news conference at the Tour Championship on Tuesday where he is expected to disclose more plans for the new model to begin in 2028 with the two-tiered Championship Series and Challenger Series format.
