Answering the Call Imagine the response if the Tour ordered Tiger to play in a tournament

It's no secret that the Tour is concerned about the so-called
second-tier tournaments, second tier being defined as any event
Tiger Woods doesn't enter. Tournament directors in the U.S. are
not allowed to offer Woods the big bucks he rakes in just for
showing up in such places as Germany or Thailand or, next year,
the United Arab Emirates. Of course, there are ways around that.
It's rumored that one of those down-and-out events on the Tour
schedule promised to build an addition to Tiger's house with a
golden arch above it so he could order a Big Mac anytime, day or
night. Woods was supposedly ready to accept, but the zoning board
in Windemere balked.

Commissioner Tim Finchem's Crisis Control Committee met recently
at Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and after a
quick 18, cocktails and lunch, discussed what could be done to
reinvigorate tournaments that are taking on, shall we say, a
Hooters look. One barometer of the strength of a field, Finchem
told the gathering, is the number of major-championship winners
entered. Too many events, he said, have featured only three or
four such past champions, and often those have been very past, a
Larry Mize or a Fuzzy Zoeller, for instance. So the question
before the committee was, How can these fringe tournaments
attract, if not Tiger, at least a sampling from the top of the
World Ranking?

One of the Tour's younger executive vice presidents, the guy in
charge of Sunday cleanup of corporate hospitality tents, noticed
that in the fine print of the Tour's bylaws it is stated that
"the commissioner is allowed to assign any one player to any one
tournament once, but only once, a year." "The perfect solution,"
Finchem was reported to have said. The committee unanimously
agreed that the commissioner himself should deliver the message
to the world's best player. According to sources, that
conversation went like this:

"Hello, is Mr. Woods at home? Oh, it's you, Tiger. Tim calling.
Tim Finchem. Commissioner Tim Finchem. You sounded different
just now, almost as if you were asleep. You were asleep? Golly,
I'm sorry, Tiger. It's noon and I thought... I thought... O.K.,
never mind what I thought.

"Your phone number? Yes, I know it's unlisted. No, O'Meara
didn't give it to me. No, it wasn't Nike, either. Well, if you
must know, it was Costner. He said to tell you he's got a spot
for you in his next film. Some sort of sequel. Asked if you can
swim.

"Listen, Tiger, the reason I'm calling is this: Ever heard of a
nice little tournament called the Michelob Championship at
Kingsmill? No, I'm not joking; it's a real tournament, held late
in the season. In Virginia, I think, or maybe Maryland. Doesn't
matter. No, it's an 18-hole course, four days. Just like the
Masters, heh heh. Your old college pal Notah Begay III won it
last year. Beat Tom Byrum in a playoff. I said Byrum. Tiger, he
plays with you on the Tour. Well, maybe not exactly with you, but
if he's made the cut, he's out there Sundays, probably on the
back nine when you're teeing off.

"What I'm getting at is this, Tiger: The Michelob Championship
needs you. In fact, it probably can't survive another year
without you. No, I'm not suggesting that you play in it. I'm
ord...ord...ordering you to play in it. Stop laughing, Tiger,
it's in the bylaws: page 35, section 6F, paragraph 4. Right
there in the small print alongside my salary and bonus plan.

"Counterproposal? Sure, I'll listen, but I can't imagine
any.... You'll what? Well that's interesting. And generous, I
might add. I'll take it up with the Michelob folks. Let's see if
I have it right. You'll personally up Michelob's purse from $3
mil to $5 mil. You'll guarantee that Davis, Jesper and Phil will
be there, and you'll work it out so if the winner is someone
like David Toms, he gets an invite to the Masters. Sounds good.
But tell me, Tiger, what do you get out of this, other than not
having to play in Maryland? Or is it Virginia?

"No, I've never heard of the Middle East Open. You're playing
there the same week as the Michelob? They're giving you...what?
Funny, my cell phone must be breaking up. It sounded as if you
said they're giving you Saudi Arabia."

Golf Plus will next appear in the Oct. 30 issue of SPORTS
ILLUSTRATED.

COLOR ILLUSTRATION: FRED HARPER

Tim Finchem's Crisis Control Committee met recently to discuss
what could be done to reinvigorate fringe events.