NFL = Revenue Sharing, LPGA Tour = Venue Sharing

If you didn’t happen to catch a single second of golf this past Sunday, whether it was Tiger Woods’ romp at the BMW Championship or the ladies teeing it up in Arkansas, it’s probably because you were glued to your television set watching the National Football League – America’s new national pastime.

The NFL owes its success in part to the violent nature of its sport, fantasy football and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. But why do we really love NFL football like our first born? On any given Sunday, any team has a chance; even Detroit or Oakland. League-wide parity is the main reason for the sport’s success and the key to maintaining a competitive balance between small- and large-market teams is the practice of revenue sharing. Essentially, mega franchises like Dallas with owners like Jerry Jones get the same check for television contracts as the Cleveland’s and Green Bay’s of the league. The more lucrative organizations help subsidize those less fortunate.

In golf, the PGA Tour is the model all other organizations attempt to emulate, even if matching its success isn’t within reason. But that doesn’t mean the less fortunate Tours can’t piggyback off of big brother.

In order for the LPGA Tour to achieve more notoriety in the coming decade, the ladies Tour will have to hope American stars like Michelle Wie, Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis win more often. The Tour will have to attract more sponsors, and set up more stateside tournaments. The last two objectives I mentioned can be achieved by a practice I’m ready to dub “venue sharing.”

This week the LPGA is doing just that by staging the Samsung World Championship on the famed Torrey Pines South Course in La Jolla, California outside of San Diego. That’s the same Torrey Pines that hosted the 2008 U.S. Open, and annually welcomes the PGA Tour’s Buick Invitational.

Take a look at seven of the ten names atop the leader board at the conclusion of last week’s P&G Beauty NW Arkansas Championship: winner Jiyai Shin, Sun Young Yoo, Shi Hyun Ahn, Song-Hee Kim, Hye Jung Choi, Na Yeon Choi and Hee Young Park. If you think the casual American golf fan will stick around to watch a tournament with so many unfamiliar names in contention you’re crazy. Instead of continuing to hold strong and insist that the fans will make the investment to get to know these foreign players, the LPGA needs to go another direction until the American players can catch up.

Holding a few events at prime time PGA Tour venues each season is an easy way to ensure that sponsors will maintain interest in the LPGA, and that fans will tune in or show up to events.

While the LPGA needs to maintain a unique identity, playing courses known for hosting PGA Tour events would create a significant buzz. I’d like to see the LPGA Tour visit layouts such as Bay Hill, Harbour Town, Riviera and Bethpage. What about Liberty National?

The PGA’s best didn’t seem to enjoy it all that much, but those views of the Statue of Liberty and the New York City skyline would be welcome sights on LPGA telecasts. And now that the Olympics will almost assuredly include golf, one of the major proponents of the movement might show his willingness to help grow the game by inviting the LPGA Tour to his club. I’m talking about you Billy Payne. Why not have a female Masters tournament?

The LPGA Tour does need to maintain its own unique identity, and the practice of playing on PGA Tour venues should only be used sparingly. This year the USGA announced that it would hold the Men’s and Women’s U.S. Opens in back-to-back weeks at the same course – the historic Pinehurst No. 2. The Women’s U.S. Open is the one ladies’ tournament each year that’s capable of standing on its own merit. It will draw the attention of the golfing public with or without a flashy well-known venue and doesn’t need the support of the boys.

In theory it was a good idea, but the LPGA Tour can afford to be distinctive during its national championship. An event like the Samsung World Championship at Torrey Pines should draw in the casual golf fan and its success will send the message that playing well-known courses usually populated by the PGA Tour is a way for the women to attract an audience.

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