What Could the European Tour Learn from The PGA Tour?
The PGA Tour is a juggernaut of golf. Wherever it goes around the United States it gets massive crowds. For example, Saturday's crowd at the Waste Management Phoenix Open was announced at 189,722!! That is a monstrously large amount of people.
The PGA Tour Championship at the much-maligned Wentworth had record crowds this year with a total of 113,640 over the 4 days!! This shows the staggering difference in size, interest, commercial mindset and innovation in the tours.
The PGA Tour visits places where there is an interest in golf, while the European Tour tries to grow the game by going to new places that are commendable but not commercial. They also go where they can find sponsors. So places like Russia where there will be one man and his dog that have gone for a walk and accidently come across the event, compared with America where there are nearly 200k people on one day alone!
The PGA Tour actively promotes the use of social media within their events. There are rules and regs as to where and how the fans can do this so as not to affect or interfere with the golfers. But this really does help spread the word throughout the world that is social media.
By contrast, when at the European Tour there is a strict no phones policy anywhere near the golf course.
Because of the vast amount of spectators and golf fans at the PGA events they can host and create much larger fans areas with enormous hospitality tents lining the holes. One of the best holes in tournament golf worldwide is the par 3 16th hole on the Stadium Course, Waste Management Phoenix Open.
The entire hole front, back, left and right is encased which creates an insane golfing environment like no other! With wild scenes such as these below:
#16 has seen some amazing shots over the years… Here is Tiger Woods with the pulsating Hole in 1!
If you take a step back and think about the PGA Tour and the players on it, you will probably be able to reel off a lot of names and as well as knowing the names you will probably know quite a bit about them! They are actively pushed to show their other talents, idiosyncrasies and hobbies outside of the game to really make the fans buy into them.
If you were to step back and think of the European tour you realise there aren’t really any characters that stand out other then Miguel Ángel Jiménez, Nicolas Colsaerts, Andy Sullivan and Andy (Beefy) Johnston.
We love watching the golf on both sides of the pond and really hope the European Tour does grow and become just as successful as its American big brother.
