This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course

And, to this blog headline, I add this:  Something has to change or the tournament should not be able to exist in its current form.

Plus, various players – including two I’ll name, Zach Johnson and Billy Horschel – have said they may no longer play in the event.

What’s over-the top?

Two things that both start with A – attendance and alcohol.

In Phoenix, there is too much of both.

After last week’s event, a newspaper in Arizona wrote this:

“PGA Tour players complaining about rowdiness at the infamous 16th hole at the Phoenix Open?

“Seriously?

“But there’s no putting The Genie back in The Bottle at the TPC Scottsdale.”

So, here’s the bottle:

• This year’s tournament attendance pushed near the 700,000 mark for the week.  And, tournament organizers had to shut the gates on Sunday because there were too many people who wanted to swell the crowd even larger.
• The epicenter of the party is the stadium-setting of the par three 16th where 20,000 people can be jammed into a small piece of real estate.
• Make that 20,000 who are downing multiple adult beverages, many over the course of six or seven hours. 
• So, let’s do some quick “beer math.”  Let’s go totally conservative and assign three beers per person at hole #16.   That’s a piddling number because many of the imbibers are in the under-30 “power drinker” demographic where three beers constitutes a simple “warm up.”
• Not sure of the actual number, but let’s say, for math purposes, that the cost of a beer is seven dollars, not unreasonable for today’s major sporting events.  Twenty-thousand spectators at three beers each is 60,000 beers per day.  Multiply that by four, that’s Thursday through Sunday, not counting pro-am day on Wednesday, and you have 240,000 beers consumed.  Times seven dollars and that’s $1,680,000 in beer sales just on that hole.
• Doesn’t even count the Coors Light hospitality tent nearby where there is entertainment after the final putt drops each day.

Now, if I was the PGA Tour, in view of this, here is what I would do.

First, I would be talking privately to two groups – (a) the Thunderbird volunteers who have run the tournament for many years (and, to their credit, have been instrumental in raising money for various Phoenix charities), and (b) Waste Management, the long-time tournament sponsor.

Second, I would say get your act together or we will no longer be playing the Phoenix Open.

Third, by getting your act together, I would say tournament organizers should impose reasonable limits on the size of the crowd and, also, do something that is no doubt difficult to do these days, which is to limit or bar alcohol sales.

Fourth, I would say, again, do this or lose the tournament.

And, finally, if I was the leader of the PGA Tour, I also would go public with my concerns in an effort to get out ahead of at least some of the concern, which has included problems drunkenness and disorderly conduct, as well fans being hurt by falling out of bleachers.

Sound right?  I think so.