Sponsors weep as El Nino blows cold

A few weeks ago Sergio Garcia slipped a cheque for $720,000 into his pocket as winner of the first tournament of the year on the US Tour, the Mercedes Championship in Hawaii. Deranged, perhaps, by the hardship of a week's golf in Hawaii, he announced his intention to top the money lists this year in both the US and Europe.

However serious Garcia is, there has been much thanks this week in La Costa at the Accenture World Matchplay championship, one of a series of four joint tour events the winnings from which count on both tours. The four events, which include the American Express Championship at Mount Juliet in September, have a combined value of $19.5 million and may yet permit Garcia to achieve his ambition.

Currently the Spaniard's endeavours are buttressed by the fact that he is one of two remaining top 10 seeds left in the field at La Costa going into the weekend. The other is last year's US PGA winner David Toms, a face unrecognisable in most homes outside his neighbourhood. Garcia is the best story left in the field.

Little wonder then that when he was one down playing the last in his match with American Scott McCarron there came the sound of gnashing teeth from the ABC television tent. The galleries aren't big at La Costa, and what spectators there are have little choice but to follow the artist formerly known as El Nino.

Going into a weekend of extensive coverage, nobody wanted to consider what a hard sell David Toms is to the great American public. C'mon Sergio, they cried unabashedly. Don't do this to us.

And that's a problem that may eventually sink this novel tournament. Players love it and the $1 million winner's prize helps them there. TV has its doubts.

This is the fifth year of the tournament's existence. After two days of play it has gone like this every year: 1999 and Tiger Woods is the only top seed left for the weekend; 2000, Woods, Davis Love, David Duval and Jesper Parnevik make it to day three; 2001, Ernie Els, Tom Lehman, Michael Campbell and Justin Leonard survive in a badly-attended experiment with holding the event in Australia; 2002, Garcia and Toms.

And so it was that there was a scarcely an eyebrow raised this week when the defending champion exited the field. What's happened to Steve Stricker? was the question on nobody's lips.

American TV and therefore American sponsors like to build key elements into their weekend coverage. First among these is Tiger Woods, whose mere, red-jumpered presence on a final day can push ratings up by 40 per cent.

Then there are the bit players in the court of Tiger. Phil The Thrill Mickelson and His One Thousand Amazing Ways Not to Win a Major. David Duval, forever approaching the point where he will have a great future behind him.

And Garcia, still only 22 and wandering back it seems from the wilderness he was in for a while. He may yet become the charisma explosion he looked like being back in 1999 at the US PGA and at Brookline.

The World Matchplay can't guarantee any or all of these elements for television on a Sunday, however, even if it is such a big tournament: its $5.5 million purse puts it just behind the Players Championship, $6 million, and the Masters, $5.6 million, and level with the US PGA and US Open.

Indeed the parade of surly superstars ducking into their courtesy cars and being quickly towards the exits on Wednesday and Thursday must have left Tour officials and network executives trembling.

If synthesised together the typical beaten player comment would be: "It's along way to come to play well and lose and then go home again".

In response, many golf fans just stay home. Attendances at La Costa have been noticeably poor, although better than 1999 when they totalled under 10,000. Spectators are left with a difficulty. They could sit at the 18th gallery all day long and only see one pairing make it that far. The alternative is to follow two players in the broiling heat or dip in and out of matches without a leaderboard telling you who is hot and who is not.

"It's a horrible tournament for the fans," said Billy Mayfair this week. "If you're not here on Wednesday and Thursday you miss a lot of good players."

It's a difficulty which La Costa has been trying to address. The tournament no longer places a big gallery at 18 as so few matches make it that far. Instead, smaller galleries are spread through the last few holes.

Matches still end unpredictably, however, with the participants swept away instantly in courtesy cars with smoked windows, leaving curiously unsatisfied fans to trudge back towards the clubhouse and the hideously priced souvenir tents.

In the short term the tournament will survive and will spend the next few years working hard to establish some sort of tradition. La Costa has new owners since last November, but organisers will sit down and talk to them this weekend. Accenture, the sponsors, are expected to sign up for a new, four-year deal as all parties are aware that another year like 2000 could be just a round the corner. That day brought Woods and Clarke in a 36-hole final.

Garcia, titillating TV executives this week by being linked with Martina Hingis, who has appeared in the galleries, ranks fourth in the world rankings and plans this year to play the minimum 15 events on the PGA Tour and 11 in Europe.

He finished sixth on the US Tour last year, losing a late-season play-off in the Tour Championship but winning the Colonial Classic and Buick Classic. His first appearance on the European Tour was the Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth, Australia, a few weeks ago.

For his work in helping to keep two Tours alive at once, he may yet receive corporate thanks. That ,or a bad case of burn-out.