The AT&T isn’t like it once was—but what is?

The question was understandable. The man looked at the field of the AT&T Pro-Am, which starts Thursday, and asked “What ever happened to this tournament?”

Answer: Progress and reality. 

Also, survival.

Golf isn’t what it used to be, and neither is the world. The tournament that began as the Crosby Pro-Am back in the 1930s has been forced to adapt to the times, as has the rest of us. 

The amateur field is not as full of celebrities as it once was decades ago. Because there are not enough celebrities who, first play golf, and also are willing and able to be part of an event that interrupts their platform. 

Is golf still a wonderful game, played by millions, and watched by as many worldwide, and fascinating to those involved as participants or spectators? And is the course named the Pebble Beach Golf Links one of the most challenging and attractive of any on the globe? However, those points almost become incidental to all but the most involved. Indeed. But not to the point we knew or they knew.

Look what’s happened to college sports, where the name-image-likeness situation has kids waiting for the best financial offer as opposed to merely the best offer. And the transfer portal has become standard fare. So has golf been similarly altered?

Everybody’s looking for the best opportunity, the best deal. The deal for the AT&T was to find a way to survive. 

The name pros particularly and some top-flight celebrity amateurs became disenchanted with rounds that lasted more than five hours and occasionally were played in miserable weather.  One of the great attractions of the tournament that began decades ago as the Crosby Pro-Am had been negated by time and progress. The erosion began in 1969 when Cypress Point, such a unique and exclusive property, open to the public only for the tournament, was taken out of the rota. Pebble Beach, the anchor course, remained one of a kind, ranking with such locations as Augusta National and St. Andrews. That still couldn’t bring the top-ranked players to the edge of the Pacific for one event out of the many on the PGA tour.

Yes, the veterans in the gallery and in the field were familiar with the great Bill Murray and his antics—and his victory one year—yet that wasn’t enough as the tournament purses grew and the field shrank.

Is it redundant to say sport itself is different? That ESPN, the Golf Channel, the Tennis Channel and every other channel has brought us an abundance—maybe an over-abundance—of sports, day and night? Whatever, there is so much out there and on the tube that what once made us attend or watch has become almost incidental. Today’s audience, understandably, is more focused on today’s stars, who they can watch almost anytime—like the NFL playoffs, for example—or any hour. The Australian Open has been shown live at 12:30 a.m. PST frequently.

The PGA Tour and the AT&T officials understand what they’re up against and thus how they must respond. The whole idea is to keep the tournament, modified as it might be from the good ole days. As the saying goes “adapt or disappear.”