A Good Walk Spoiled: Chapters 5-8, Pages 116-211

The way that the PGA Tour makes the majority of their money is through sponsorship, especially the naming rights to their tournaments. Buick has to be the biggest sponser because they had their name put on four different tour stops; the Buick Invitational in San Diego, the Buick Classic in Westchester, The Buick Open in Blanc, Mich., and finally the Buick Southern Open in Columbus, Georgia.

I think that the PGA is very smart for doing this and making money anyway they can. The only downfall to the whole thing is that with sponsership changing almost on a yearly basis it takes away some of the tradtion of having an event with the same name year in and year out. To the normal golf fan I would think it would be hard to know where the tournament stops at each week by just looking at the name of the tournament because it always seems to be changing with a higher bidder coming in every year and putter their name on the tournament.

A big reason that companies pay the extra money to have their name part of the title of the tournament is that the companies name has to be said on television everytime someone is refering to the tournement. For example, if AT&T is a major sponser of a tournament like the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but doesn't fork over enough money for naming rights for the tournament, then their name might not get mentioned at all and the only exposure that they will get will be mainly with T.V. commericials. However, if AT&T pays enough for the naming rights, then when refering to the tournament an announcer has to say "The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am" so that all of the viewers know who's paying the big money. The way of making money is a lot like NASCAR. Each week the cars are plastered with decals of sponsers from the major one on the hood to the small ones on the rear fender. The names that the sponsers put on the race sometimes can get a little out of hand in how long and ridiculous they are.