Davis Love III begging to find perfect RSM Classic tournament date
Davis Love III, host of the RSM Classic, has worked his tournament into a sweet spot on the PGA TOUR’s ever-crowded calendar.
If you’re Davis Love III, Hall of Famer, PGA Tour Policy Board member, lifetime exempt PGA Tour member, you think it’s going to be easy to get a PGA Tour date and having everything go like clockwork. As Lee Corso says on ESPN’s Saturday morning college football pregame show, “Not so fast, my friend!”
Love is learning new skills and the way the world works when you’re the Tournament Host and not just a superior PGA Tour player. Getting the right date on the PGA Tour is both happenstance and plan. Some of it depends on weather. For instance, you can’t play the Travelers tournament in January because the golf course is probably frozen. By the same token, it’s nuts to try to play in Florida or Arizona in August. It’s too hot. But there are plenty of other decisions that go into any date for any tournament.
"“As a PGA Tour board member, we’re very happy with our schedule,” Love said, tongue in cheek on Wednesday at the RSM. “We didn’t choose this date, is a nice way to put it. Sea Island and RSM have made it work, and I think it works very well.”"
He admitted he would rather be first in the new season, but if not first, then last in the fall is the way to go.
“I think we’ve worked our way into where we like it. The players seem to like it, so it’s working,” he added. If more players adopt the Rickie Fowler mindset of taking time off after the playoffs and Cups, and not playing in Asia, there may be soon be more demand for spots in the RSM.
The RSM Classic is an attractive spot for recent Web.com Tour graduates
Love noted that he would love to be back-to-back with Sanderson Farms, and that having those two right after the finish of the Web.com Tour Championship in the Jacksonville area would make a lot of geographic sense. However, the Napa tournament, Safeway Open, also makes sense as a jumping off point for those players who go to Asia for three weeks in the fall.
“When we first got into this eight years ago, I thought, this is simple. I’m going to go here,” he explained. “Well it’s not that simple. There’s so many factors involved.”
Dates in the PGA Tour schedule are the bane of every tournament except The Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA. They all have traditional dates and everyone else works around them.
Everything will change in 2019 when the anticipated change in the FedExCup Playoffs and the new date for the PGA take effect.
"“We’re going to open up a few weeks, obviously, after the Playoffs, and so there’s a lot of moving parts to that,” Love began. “In the big vision of Olympics, (it) is good for golf, it was good for golf, and I don’t argue that, but it messed up our schedule.” (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)"
At this juncture, according to Love, it’s just too difficult to tell when the Playoffs will start and stop and when fall tournaments will begin and where the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup will land on the calendar in the future.
However, don’t look for the weeks to go unfilled.
"“I think the worst thing for us is to just leave a month open. Somebody’s going to fill it if we leave it open, so, no, I don’t think there will be open weeks, it’s just a matter of who goes where,” he explained. “We’re talking about losing one –shortening the Playoffs by one week. That’s only one week.”More from Pro Golf NowGolf Rumors: LIV set to sign Masters Champion in stunning dealFantasy Golf: Grant Thornton Invitational DFS Player SelectionsBrutal return leaves Will Zalatoris looking towards 2024Stars You Know at World Champions Cup Starts Thursday at ConcessionFantasy Golf: An Early Look at the 2024 Masters Tournament"
Actually planning out the whole PGA Tour calendar is also impacted by sponsors and renewals, which Love discovered while sitting with Andy Pazder, executive vice president and chief of operations for the PGA Tour.
“One sponsor pulls out, and you don’t know if they’re going to be replaced two years down the road, throws a whole other wrench in it,” Love explained. “It’s amazing to me that they get it done.”
If there are three or four weeks that are question marks, then it’s like trying to complete a puzzle with missing pieces.
However, that problem is not going to deter tournament director Love from his mission in protecting his tournament.
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“I’m still going to go complain and beg for my day,” he assured everyone. “I’m going to try to yell louder than everybody else and get what I want, but I also understand when they say, ‘This is your date, make it work.’ Then we’ll make it work.”