TMCnet News
On Grand Strand Golf: NGA Tour acquired, changes name to SwingThought.com Tour [The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.)](Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 16--In a time of struggle for developmental tours in the United States, NGA Pro Golf Tour president Robin Waters of Loris believes he's found a savior for his Grand Strand-based tour and its business model. Golf Interact LLC, a company looking to make a splash in the golf world with new ideas, products and marketing, has acquired the NGA Tour. As of Tuesday, the 25-year tour will be called the SwingThought.com Tour. "We feel very fortunate to have been acquired by a group who is as passionate and committed to developmental golf as we are," Waters said. "This is a win-win for all parties involved, especially for the players so they can once again compete for substantial earnings." Waters remains the president of the re-branded tour and has become an equity partner in Golf Interact, and said his full NGA Tour staff is being retained. Golf Interact was founded by company chief operating officer Michael Rush of Houston during his senior year at Sam Houston State in 2009. It has several investors, and Swing Thought is the company's first brand brought to market. Swing Thought is a philosophy with a new website and developing product line dedicated to simplifying the game for players. Golf Interact's second brand is the SwingThought.com (ST) Tour, which Rush believes will give Swing Thought exposure and name recognition. "We have big plans for the tour, and in time, we believe it will be the best professional golf tour available for players outside of the PGA Tour," said Rush, who turned 30 on Sunday. The company has plans to not only grow its business but help grow the game. "This is a major milestone for us and will accelerate our growth and impact, but it is just the beginning," Rush said. Rush said he is currently in discussions with the operators of at least two other developmental tours or mini-tours in the hopes of acquiring them as well, and may attempt to take over other tours in the future. "We're working on acquiring several of the developmental tours and using NGA as our base," Rush said. He plans to have regional tours in the winter that will be consolidated into one summer tour, and wants to build the 2015 schedule and future schedules around Monday qualifiers for Web.com and PGA tour events to optimize playing opportunities for tour members. "This is a good thing for developmental golf," Waters said. "It has a lot of needs right now in the current structure and this is definitely one of them. It's a good thing for the players, trying to get them back opportunities." Rush said he is trying to attract a presenting sponsor for the SwingThought.com Tour in addition to sponsors of multiple series of regional events. "We believe we can reinvigorate the segment, and it desperately needs that," Rush said. The NGA's primary Pro Series tour -- which was known as the Hooters Tour for nearly two decades after starting as the TC Jordan Tour -- has been considered the third-largest and influential non-senior men's tour in the U.S. It has featured a model similar to the one employed by the PGA Tour and its Web.com Tour subsidiary with a traveling schedule, 72-hole walking tournaments and guaranteed purses. Tour alumni include Bubba Watson, Jim Furyk, Keegan Bradley, Zach Johnson, John Daly and Lee Janzen, as well as several recent young winners on the PGA Tour. The NGA Tour had $200,000 purses for several years, dropped to predominantly $150,000 events for a couple years with a few $200,000 tournaments after Hooters dropped its title sponsorship, and announced guaranteed purses averaging about $150,000 for 18 events this year. But the tour had to back away from guaranteed purses this year. It was accustomed to fields of 150 players or more, but the opening 2014 event had about 100 players, and entries dropped even more precipitously after the first couple months of the season. The PGA Tour's increased involvement in developmental golf has changed the playing field. The PGA Tour took over both the Tour de las Americas and the Canadian Tour late in 2012 -- renaming them the LatinoAmerica NEC Series and PGA Tour Canada -- and created PGA Tour China for 2014. The three tours have purses similar to those offered in recent years by the NGA Tour, and because they now feed the Web.com Tour through the top finishers on their money lists, U.S. players have been chasing those international feeders, leaving them with less time and less money for domestic developmental and mini-tours. The NGA Tour began the season with a customary $2,000 membership fee in addition to tournament entry fees, but as competing tours began offering the same entry fee for members and non-members alike without membership fees or late-entry penalties, the NGA Tour's numbers dropped further. The tour still managed to pay out 95 percent of entry fees in each event, compared to the 70-85 percent some other tours feature, but it had fewer than 50 players in many of its late-season events. "This will enable us to at least get back to doing what we've been doing with guaranteed purses and larger tournaments," Waters said. "It allows players to commit to the tour and have the ability to earn more substantial income to continue chasing their dream. ... I was willing to give up the company and equity in it to see it happen." Rush will be on the Strand next week to discuss and finalize some aspects of the new agreement including the 2015 schedule and amount of guaranteed purses. The NGA Tour had announced in early June a merger with the All-American Gateway Tour based in Arizona, and Waters said Tuesday he and Gateway president Dusty Dean had signed a letter of intent to merge with the anticipation the combined tours would be purchased by Golf Interact. The Gateway Tour is not part of Golf Interact's acquisition of the NGA Tour, though Waters said it still might become part of the SwingThought.com Tour. Dean could not be reached for comment Monday. Rush has the perspective of a player as well as an entrepreneur, as he's an aspiring touring pro who is entered this week in the Pre-Qualifier stage of the Web.com Tour Qualifying Tournament. The initial Swing Thought product is a wrist band with wording designed to act as a mental trigger for players before they swing. "The majority of the brand pitches in the golf industry are complex and technical in nature; we believe the game should be simple and fun," Rush said. "The least amount of thoughts in your head provide you the best chance of playing better." A new online store is launching this fall, possibly by late October, and Rush is also creating a golf-related social media brand called Putter. The NGA Tour operates four tours: the Pro Series, Winter Series in Florida, Carolina Series and Carolina Winter Series. The first event under the SwingThought.com Tour name will be a Carolina Winter Series event at The Pearl on Oct. 12, which begins a series of events on the Strand that run through mid-February. New this year to the Carolina Winter Series will be lowered amateur entry fees and new one-day Sunday tournaments with the winner earning entry into the ensuing 36- and 54-hole tournaments being played between Mondays and Thursdays. A full membership on the 2015 SwingThought.com Tour is part of the prize package for the winner of Golf Channel's Big Break Myrtle Beach reality competition series. "There are going to be some exciting days ahead," Waters said. "We're looking forward to it It's a good thing for golf. Golf needs energy and fresh faces." Meet Big Break cast Golf Channel will introduce viewers to the cast of "Big Break Myrtle Beach" with a Meet the Players special at 9 p.m. Wednesday. The hour-long show will provide some insight into the six men and six women who are competing for more than $100,000 in cash and prizes, including their back-stories on and off the course that includes visits to each of their hometowns. The diverse cast includes 12 aspiring professional golfers from nine states as well as Canada, Austria and Latvia. The show also will preview some of the drama, action and excitement that will take place throughout the 11-episode series, which will air for 11 consecutive weeks at 9 p.m. Tuesdays beginning Oct. 7. The 22nd season of Big Break was filmed on the Grand Strand in June, with most of the episodes taking place at Barefoot Resort and one being contested at Pawleys Plantation. Big Break Myrtle Beach is hosted by Tom Abbott and Paige Mackenzie. CCU grad impresses Ryan Skipton, a 30-year-old graduate of the Coastal Carolina PGA Golf Management Program, became the new head pro Monday at The Ford Plantation Club in a private community near Savannah, Ga. Skipton has been the senior assistant pro at the prestigious National Golf Links in Southampton, N.Y., and his hire as The Ford Club's third-ever pro comes about two weeks before it reopens following a $7 million renovation overseen by architect Pete Dye. Skipton's previous employers include Pebble Beach Golf Links. Law of the game With the 25th playing of the Law Enforcement Appreciation Day Golf Tournament earlier this month at Eagle Nest Golf Club, Mike Hardee and Rick Elliott showed their commitment to a tradition that was dear to their fathers. The late Troy Hardee, a 45-year salesman at Palmetto Chevrolet, helped start the event and Sen. Dick Elliott served as the host for the better part of two decades at the Eagle Nest course he owned. Though they're gone, the tournament lives on. This year 174 officers from around South Carolina participated after about 200 participated in each of the past two years. "It's was a tradition for my dad," said Elliott, who owns Eagle Nest and a real estate company. "He always supported public safety -- police, fire and highway patrol -- and this was his way of saying 'thank you.' " The event featured a post-round barbecue dinner, on-course drinks and numerous prizes, and everything was donated as the event has several sponsors. The tournament got its start when Mike Hardee, a retired longtime Lance Cracker Co. employee who works part-time on the maintenance staff at the Hackler Course at CCU, played a round of golf with family friend Don Blanton of the S.C. Highway Patrol, and Troy Hardee offered to cook fish for a post-round meal. For several years, Troy Hardee would catch bass over the course of the year and freeze it for the annual post-tournament fish fry, until the event outgrew his fishing production. Smunk entering hall Kingstree resident Bill Smunk, whose name has been prominent on golf leaderboards in the state for almost a half-century, has been chosen for induction into the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame. The only player to win the S.C. Golf Association's Amateur, Mid-Amateur and Senior Amateur championship, Smunk will become the Hall's 64th member in a ceremony conducted by the SCGA on Jan. 10 at Columbia Country Club. A native of Bethesda, Md., he won his first title, the 1968 Parris Island Club championship, at age 18 and captured another this year at the age of 64 by taking the senior title in the SCGA's Tournament of Champions at Tradition Club. In between, he won the Amateur in 1984, the Mid-Amateur in 1989 and '95 and the Senior Amateur in 2009. He has qualified for the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Senior Amateur and amassed an amazing 24 holes-in-one. Contact ALAN BLONDIN at 626-0284 or on Twitter @alanblondin, or read his blog Green Reading at myrtlebeachonline.com ___ (c)2014 The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.) Visit The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.) at www.thesunnews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |