A no-holds barred message was posted by CEO Mike Hastings to The Medalist Tour’s website yesterday (left-hand column, entitled “Director’s Message”), aimed at unnamed players: stop your whining.
Quoting Hastings from The Medalist Tour’s website:
“As we get ready for our sixth event of the year, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has played with us so far this year.
When we started this tour, we hoped that it would give anyone interested in coming together and competing against their peers at great golf courses the opportunity to do so.
So far so good! The golf has been great and the weather has cooperated. The one bad thing we have experienced that we need to address, however, is whining.
I want to be clear. I’m not talking about suggestions – we have gotten some great ideas from our members. I’m talking about whining, complaining for complaining sake. Anyone who has played this game long enough knows the difference, and has had a bad experience with someone who does it.
Anytime you try to do something, there could always be another way to do it. We modeled our tour after others who have been successful for years. We established policies and procedures similar to those successful tours and everyone who has joined has agreed to those rules.
We want to keep this fun for everyone who plays, so we ask that people keep their whining to themselves, or simply stay home.
As we grow, we look forward to attracting more sponsors, playing on other great courses, and being a home for competitive golf for those who love it. You won’t get rich here, but hopefully you’ll have a great time!
Again we appreciate your participation and look forward to seeing you compete at our next event.”
Have a comment or a thought on what Hastings has to say? A suggestion related to the operation of The Medalist Tour? Login and post your ideas to the forum below…
John, you are right that golfers are great at whining about events when things aren’t going well for them. However, there are several concerns that I believe should be addressed to make the Medalist Tour all that it can be.
Firstly, while it is true that most mini-tours do use playoffs to determine first place, a one-day event cannot both use playoffs and tee players off in tee-times. Players that start in the beginning of block of times will have to wait around for quite a long time, possibly for up to 3 or more hours, to see how the field finishes. In a multi-day event, players are repaired by score so players with a better chance of winning play later, to minimize this waiting. One possible solution would be to keep players of different flights in the same block of times, so all pros would play together, as well as all seniors, scratch amateurs, etc. This would ensure that no player really has to wait around for more than about an hour to see how his flight finishes.
Second, at least for us pros who play for a living, rather than the club pros, it is kind of difficult to justify paying $200 and have to finish first or second to really make any money. For most events on the smaller mini tours down south, a two-day event costs an average of $600. The same amount out of these two amounts goes to the courses, but instead of having just $100 or $125 per player going to the pot (just assuming), you could raise the entry fee to $350 or $400. I am willing to bet that most pros would be more than willing to pay this to have a top prize of $1800 or $2000.
However, don’t get me wrong – I applaud Mike and his crew for really being the first to address the need for Northern Ohio to have an option for non-PGA professionals. The courses are very nice and it’s great to have the chance to help out charities at the same time. I just want to see this tour continue to grow into something that might grab the attention of some mini-tour pros down south. The golf courses up here are so far superior to those down south, even the ones we play on the EGolf Tour, and I think it will have great appeal to those guys.
Anyways, I hope to see the Medalist tour keep evolving into the tour this area has always needed.
As long as we have golfers, we will have whiners. However, if each whiner would do their share and put on their own event on their time for all of us to enjoy, they would not whine any longer and we would have many more events to play up here in Northeast Ohio. Hats off to all of you that take the time and effort to put on events here in Northeast Ohio because you know what your net pay will always be: No cheese, just wine-ing