George may face legal battle
The wedge issue on the Champions Tour isn't gay marriage or social security. It is golf carts, and if you don't believe they can cause a stir, remember two words: Casey Martin.
Carts have been as much a part of the Champions Tour as Advil, elbow braces and plus-fours on plus-sized guys. Often debated, sometimes filled with enough snacks and clothes for a through-hiker on the Appalachian Trail, occasionally, in the old days, driven by caddies who barked at spectators with the rage of a commuter stuck in an endless rush hour, they've always been there.
For the most part, though, carts were just background noise, the dialogue of a mediocre sitcom wafting in from the next room. Now, barring the courts or an unlikely change of heart by the tour -- which would be the equivalent, at this point, of the Swift Boat vets wanting to go windsurfing with John Kerry -- they are going the way of persimmon and balata.
Unless golfers qualify under the Americans With Disabilities Act -- the law under which Martin sued and prevailed over the PGA Tour in the late 1990s -- seniors will have to walk. And for seniors who don't want to give up their license, getting rid of carts makes as much sense as a ponytail on a drill sergeant or serving a T-bone steak to a vegan.
"We've had carts forever, and now all of a sudden they're bad, they're causing this tour to go downhill?" said Tom Purtzer, who like fellow cart advocate Ed Fiori has a bad back. "It's not true."
Rick George, an energetic 44-year-old who used to play and coach college football before becoming the tournament director of the New Orleans PGA Tour stop, was named the Champions Tour president last year. "I was hired to elevate this tour," he said last week at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, "to look at everything critically. We looked at [changing] the minimum age. We looked at carts. How do we make this product better? How do we make it more saleable? How do we get more people watching?"
According to George, he listened to players before leading the way to a board-approved cart ban. "I can listen and hear what they say and still make a decision that's different from what they would like me to do," George said.
"They couldn't care less about our opinion," said Purtzer. "Now it's deaf ears. If they back down now, they're going to lose face. Well, they've already lost all respect of the players. We thought logic would take over, but there doesn't seem to be any logic to the leadership of this tour." Dave Stockton, who walks but doesn't like the disunity the issue has brought to a tour that just a couple of years ago was a fragile commodity, said, "They've got their neck bowed, and they're going with it." Like other older members, Stockton believes outlawing carts is a way to force the circuit's eldest players into retirement.
"I'm a pretty caring person," George said. "I'm sympathetic to some of the guys because of the nature of their injuries, but at some point you've got to look at the whole. That's what my job is, to look at the whole and make decisions that are best for the tour."
Considering "the whole" is part of the problem, according to players eager to keep using a cart. In this election season, players bring up the notion of majority rule, that 80 percent of them want to keep carts in one fashion or the other, a sentiment ignored by the tour. "What kind of a democracy is that?" Jay Sigel said.
Gibby Gilbert, another sixty-something player, said he has queried hundreds of pro-am partners over the last several years, asking them if pros-in-carts are a distraction or diminish their experience. "Only two out of probably 500 have said they were," Gilbert said.
Even as the old season ends, as the days between now and the first shot of 2005 dwindle, players are mystified by the tour's hunkering down. Kermit Zarley, who has written the U.S. Department of Justice because the tour denied his request to use a cart despite a degenerative right hip, saying his problem wasn't covered by the ADA, said a tour executive boasted, "We're ready," in regards to any legal assaults on the cart ban.
"I'm a big boy," George said of the prospects of legal action from players opposed to a policy change. "If it gets overturned, it gets overturned. If it gets overturned, so be it, we move on." Asked if he would walk away quietly or fight if he were in the players' shoes, George said, "I've thought about it. Certainly I know me, if there is something I feel strongly about, I'm going to fight for it."
If a battle of wills begets a war of attorneys, it is hard to see how the Champions Tour wins, regardless of how it might fare in a legal tussle. If carts are driven off, they're going to hit some speed bumps along the way.
Bill Fields is a senior editor for Golf World magazine
