Tagged: Donald Ross
TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola — Why are all the letters in “tour” capitalized?
MinLast tournament of the year! Only 30 players left at East Lake (excluding Hunter Mahan who said screw it and is playing over in Europe this week). Who’s gonna win? Will the $10 million giant check that I assume the winner gets fit in their pocket? What does Morgan Pressel look like in a video game? Find out below!
About the Sponsor
Compared to pretty much every other sponsor on the PGA Tour, Coca-Cola has got to seem like the odd one out. I mean we got insurance companies, we got car companies, we got banks, and we got … soda?
Honestly, I’m not that big a fan of Coke.
I suppose it fits because Coca-Cola is based in Atlanta, and they they are sitting on an pile of cash with a market cap of over 168B. Geez who knew you could make that much money in soda?
Well obviously Coca-Cola isn’t going to put all it’s carbonation in a drink that goes well with whiskey, so I looked up some of the other ways they make dat money. They own a couple other brands of beverage, including Minute Maid, Sprite, and Barq’s, but by far the most interesting way Coke has made money is by buying Columbia Pictures in 1982 for $692 million and selling it in 1989 to Sony for $3 billion. Not a bad return for 7 years. In reality though, I guess Coke is just one of those brands the pretty much everyone everywhere likes. And the fact that they distribute in 200 countries doesn’t hurt.
The Barclays — … The Barclays What?
The Barclays sets itself apart from most other tournaments by deciding to not use an identifier or other words in the tournament title besides the name of the sponsor. So I guess it’s neither an Open, nor a Championship, so probably just a Tournament. Actually, I’ll go with invitational since you have to qualify. So this week, it’s The Barclays Invitational. I asked Barclays officials about what kind of event this really is and they declined to comment.
About the Sponsor
I’ve sat here for a while now trying to think of what to say about Barclays. I figured I needed to mention that you have to say “Barclays” with a English accent, cause 1) it sounds better, and 2) that’s a good enough reason on its own. But that’s about the only interesting thing about it. In reality, all you really need to know about Barclays is that it’s a British bank that does bank like things all around the world.
Barclays — Impressively Boring
About the Tournament
Beginning in 1967 (and first won by Jack Nicklaus), The Barclays had a rich history of being played on the same course until 2008. The tournament was pretty much synonymous with Westchester Country Club, even donning the name “Westchester Classic” for the first 9 years of existence.
But money changes things, and in 2007 when the FedEx Cup began, the tournament was moved from June to August, and also started moving around host courses (and hasn’t returned to Westchester either). Currently, the tournament seems to be on a 5 course hosting rotation, with Plainfield being a part of it.
The Wyndham Championship — Last Shot at the (Now Meaningful) PGA Tour Playoffs
Aww yeah Tdubs is back. Theme of the week is how the PGA Tour and FedEx have finally won. Tiger playing this week means that he cares about the structure of the playoff system enough to play in a new event. So congrats to that. Greensboro, and the Wyndham Championship are here.
About the Sponsor
It’s been a while since we’ve had a hotel be the title sponsor of an event. Last one I can remember was the Crowne Plaza, and since I lack the will to open up the 2015 Tour schedule, that’s the final answer. Now like most giant companies, the Wyndham name is both the name of a holding company for a bunch of different hotel chains, as well as a hotel brand itself. Wyndham Worldwide is the holding company name, and their brands (excluding the ones that use the Wyndham name) are Baymont Inn & Suites, Days Inn, Howard Johnson’s, Knights Inn, Microtel, Ramada, Super 8, Travelodge.
Logos on logos
The history of the Wyndham name goes back to 1981 when Trammell Crow, who incidentally wins the award for oddest name I’ve typed out in a while, named it after his friend and reporter, Wyndham Robertson. I have a feeling that Mrs. Trammell Crow probably wasn’t too pleased that her husband named a hotel brand after another woman. Apparently not since the Trammell Crows were married 67 years before the guy kicked it.
After its founding and subsequent growth period, following the chain of ownership for the brand becomes rather confusing. According to the allknowing Wikipedia, it appears to have changed hands 3 or 4 times before ending up with something called Cendant, which then spun off it’s hotel business into something called Wyndham Worldwide, the current sponsor of this week’s event.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Golf On The Mind 