 |
By Jim McCabe, Globe Staff, 7/10/2003 NORTON -- It had not yet started to rain yesterday, so players were taking their appropriate swings on a golf course -- the Tournament Players Club of Boston -- that blends in beautifully with nature. Some of the walks from green to tee wind you through woods, and it was on one such trip that a fawn and her doe were spotted. The deer stopped to check out the visitors, decided they weren't about to share the moment, and darted into the woods. It was the most fleeting of all moments, but the deer served to remind just how close to nature this game of golf is. At the same time, news about another dynamic animal, a Tiger, served to remind just how close we are to the return of a PGA Tour event to our area. Tiger Woods, it was announced, has pledged to play in the Deutsche Bank Championship Aug. 29-Sept. 1 at TPC Boston. Vijay Singh and US Open winner Jim Furyk were two other marquee names who said they will be playing at the inaugural tournament. While Woods's participation in an event whose proceeds will benefit the Tiger Woods Foundation was anticipated, official word of his intentions gave tournament organizers even more reason to count down the days. For the record, the first tee time is 50 days from tomorrow. That may be seven weeks to ticket-holders and golf fans, but to tournament organizers it seems as if there's no time to waste. That's what happens when your management team is assigned a challenge of putting together a PGA Tour event in less than eight months. ''It's been a major task,'' said Jay Monahan, the championship director, who together with Eric Baldwin, Keith Driscoll, Michele Miller, and Jennifer Twomey, has dealt with a multitude of logistical hurdles to get this event as close as it now is. ''It hasn't been easy, but all along we knew it would work, just as long as we had a plan.'' The Deutsche Bank Championship will mark the return of the PGA Tour to the Boston area. In 1998, a longtime run of tournaments at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton came to an end. Large-scale events such as the 1999 Ryder Cup Matches at The Country Club in Brookline and the 2001 US Senior Open at Salem CC in Peabody, and the annual success that is the FleetBoston Classic at Nashawtuc CC in Concord -- the longest-running 54-hole event on the Champions Tour -- have convinced PGA Tour officials that the Boston area has a deep thirst for golf. That belief has been supported by the speed in which sponsorships, hospitality opportunities, and spectator tickets have been consumed. ''We sold out our Founders' Club sponsors,'' said Monahan, who grew up in the Boston area and has worked in global sports marketing departments with EMC and Woolf Associates. ''Tickets for the Palmer Pavilion [hospitality area] should be sold out by next week, and our daily tickets are going fast. Things have gone very well.'' The management team's biggest hurdle was figuring out how people -- whether they be spectators, vendors, players, caddies, or media members -- would get from here to there. What helped out greatly was a lead block by the Patriots and the NFL -- an exhibition game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough originally scheduled for Aug. 29, the day the Deutsch Bank Championship begins, was moved up two days. Talk about running to daylight, or, in this case, driving to daylight. The NFL's change in date allowed tournament officials to use the stadium parking lots, with shuttle buses taking spectators to and from the course. The shuttle service will be free, but parking will cost $10 for practice rounds and $15 for championship rounds. Daily tickets have been limited to 25,000, but that's still a lot of people to move in and out. And while Monahan said he is sure the shuttle plan will work, he's well aware of another piece of the puzzle: two Jimmy Buffett concerts at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, next door to the golf course. They are scheduled for the evenings of Aug. 28 (the final day of practice rounds) and Aug. 30 (the second round), and few concerts pack them in like a Buffett show. Both shows at the 19,900-capacity venue are already sold out. Still, Monahan is optimistic. ''The congestion of two major events is very real,'' he said. ''But of all the concerts that lend itself to what we want to do, Buffett is it.'' Monahan's thinking is that since Buffett regulars -- so-called Parrotheads -- tend to arrive early for concerts, they might keep the traffic woes to a minimum. It's imperative, said Monahan, that golf ticket-holders ''know they have to park at Gillette Stadium, and our goal is to help clear the golf course as early as we can Thursday afternoon.'' The Buffett concerts may even be a draw . . . for players. The concerts may be a means for tournament organizers to entertain players and their families, as may the Yankees-Red Sox games that weekend at Fenway Park. Sight-seeing trips to Boston and Newport, R.I., are being planned as well. But it all comes back to golf, which is, after all, what this tournament is all about. That TPC Boston recently celebrated its one-year anniversary makes the event unusual, because most weeks on the PGA Tour players and spectators are returning to a familiar venue. TPC Boston is actually a work-in-progress. The fact that bulldozers are at work there is indicative of just how superbly the men of the PGA Tour are playing the game these days, because club officials have given their blessing to adding more yardage. Within a few weeks, new tees at the fourth, fifth, ninth, and 13th holes should all be in, giving the pros 7,400-7,500 yards. Work crews yesterday were molding the new tee at the ninth, a task that will make the hole play upward of 480 yards. (And, yes, we're talking par 4, folks.) Crews also were still at work digging out the new tee at No. 13, making that hole play roughly 470 yards. The 516-yard 14th hole is being shortened to a par 4 of roughly 470-480 yards, a move that will make TPC Boston a par-71 course for the big boys. But before you feel too sorry for them, remember that there's a $5 million purse at stake. Because the course is so new, tournament officials already have the kind of ''firm and fast track'' they love. Superintendent Tom Brodeur, who oversaw a grow-in of grass that colleagues called extraordinary, has been pinching in the fairways. Assuming the summer weather is cooperative, the rough should be testing. ''It's a great golf course,'' said Mark Russell, a tournament director with the PGA Tour. ''I think the players will enjoy it.'' Russell visited TPC Boston in the spring and walked the course with Brad Faxon, who suggested where several new tees could be placed. ''Those [new] tees are quite demanding,'' said Russell. ''But while the golf course isn't overly long, the greens are a challenge and you'll still have to hit good golf shots.'' Faxon, who has made other visits to the club (its practice facility is considered by players to be one of the best in the country), is thrilled to see the PGA Tour return to his backyard. Fellow Rhode Islander Billy Andrade will also tee it up in the Deutsche Bank Championship, and others to confirm their commitments include Jeff Sluman, Charles Howell, Jesper Parnevik, and Jay Haas. The week prior to the Deutsche Bank, a strong field will be in Akron, Ohio, for the NEC Invitational. That has lent organizers hope that some marquee international names -- such as Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke -- will come to TPC Boston. And players such as Davis Love, David Toms, Nick Price, Mike Weir, and Chris DiMarco have indicated their interest. ''You like to support first-year events,'' said Toms, twice a winner on the PGA Tour this year. Yesterday's official commitment from a certain Tiger reinforced that belief. As for the deer, they plan to be there, too.
This story ran on page E8 of the Boston Globe on 7/10/2003.
� Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
|
|
