Tournament Test Balloons

Despite the fact that there are effectively three tour level trails – plus the Opens, plus the Toyotas, plus whatever the heck is going on out west this year – each year some new entity promises us a pot of gold at the end of their rainbow. Whether it’s a new tour or a handful of events, it promises to cure the ills or perceived ills of the existing circuits. 

What frustrates me as a fan of the sport is that these deals arise, make a stink, and then often fade away without another peep. Sometimes they surprise me – the NPFL has certainly stayed around longer than I expected – but all too often they die on the vine. A year later, as we hear the plans for the next next big thing someone will say “Whatever happened to…?” and we’ll all just kind of grimace or let out an uneasy laugh.

I think the first problem is that tour operators sometimes let their excitement get ahead of their wallets. They announce the big plans, hoping that it’ll produce a torrent of interest and with it a torrent of dollars. The second problem, I suppose, is that we already have those three tours, plus the AAA and AA options and all sorts of weekend deals. Any dollar that’s going to be spent beyond entry fees is already allocated to something else. If we’re going to pay Peter, we have to rob Paul. 

Despite occasional glimpses on non-endemic stages, our sport has not kept up with its dreams. I follow it as closely as just about anyone, both for fun and for work, and we’ve gotten to the point where there are some really good tour-level fishermen who I simply don’t recognize. I don’t mean that I don’t recognize their faces, but rather that even their names ring a bell. At this point, it feels like in order to grow the sport, it’s necessary to reduce the field.