The 19th Hole: A Case of Bad Timing

The LPGA Tour is currently in Asia. They have been for the past two weeks and will complete the swing through the continent this week in Japan. I’ll bet you had no clue that was happening, though. The LPGA Tour is currently dark – TV speak for “not being broadcast” – in the United States for this swing of events. That means fans, either casual or hardcore, do not have an opportunity to watch the development of Suzann Pettersen.

Pettersen has been on a tear in recent weeks. She won last week in the Hana Bank/KOLON Championship in South Korea after the final round was cancelled due to horrendous conditions. She then took the show to Thailand for the succinctly named Honda LPGA Thailand. There, Pettersen played like the event in South Korea had never ended. Entering the final round on Sunday, she held a seven shot lead over the field on -20. She then overcame a strong Sunday charge from Laura Davies with an eagle at the last hole to win the event by a shot.

The Norwegian has won in three of her last four events, including a showdown in overtime with Lorena Ochoa in the next to last Stateside event before the Asia swing. Were it not for the crushing performance of Ochoa at the Samsung event at Bighorn, Pettersen would be riding a three event win streak. In the span of less than a month, the LPGA Tour’s hottest player and the continent on which they are playing switched entirely.

The sad part is that it could not come at a worse time in the schedule for the LPGA’s domestic fan base. Video of the win is hard to come by because of the lack of a television deal to broadcast these events – even on the LPGA Tour’s own website. The developing legitimacy of Suzann Pettersen as a rival to the game’s supposedly most dominant player is not being televised. The revolution is not being televised. Ok, that’s a little too far, but I had to make the joke.

There is nothing wrong with playing events overseas. For years, in this space, I have demanded that the PGA Tour gathers the guts to play more full field events outside of the United States. I have yearned for a legitimate world tour that carts the best players in the world to six of seven continents to play championship golf on the best courses known to man.

The insinuation behind all of that, though, is that I would actually be able to watch it. The LPGA Tour has to find a way to get these events broadcast live. It would be a great opportunity for their website, the capable lpga.com, to give fans an introduction to non-major events being telecast over the Internet. The fan response to broadcasts on masters.org and usopen.com is overwhelming. It may not be that huge for the LPGA Tour’s Asia swing, long after most casual fans are done with golf for the year, but it would drive a lot of traffic.

The creation of the Fall Series after the FedEx Cup affords all of the major tours a wonderful opportunity to showcase their talent. The LPGA Tour has great fields over 5000 miles away from the United States, where the tour is largely based. It is happening in October no less. This is unthinkable on the PGA Tour. Combine that with the fact that about 27 people were watching the Ginn sur Mer Classic this weekend (I was one of them), and all the LPGA Tour has a perfect opportunity to draw in the hardcore golf fan that is sick of watching Boston win everything.

This was a missed opportunity for the LPGA Tour. Could they have predicted that Suzann Pettersen would have done this? Of course not. Should they have been prepared for the possibility that solid fields a continent away would produce results that could have been marketing material going into 2008? Absolutely.

The LPGA Tour has been doing the right thing for several years now by expanding their season outside of the United States. Now they need to follow up on that by making sure that we can see just how good of an idea it really is.