Anonymous Poll on Supporting Pro Tour

Here's what you get for becoming a USGA member:

- Year’s subscription to USGA Golf Journal — 4 issues in print, every month online
- Player’s Edition of the Rules of Golf *
- Personalized USGA Member bag tag *
- Discounted admission to the USGA Golf Museum in Liberty Corner, N.J.
- Member savings at USGAshop.com
- Volunteer opportunities at USGA Championships
- Invitations to participate in polls and surveys
- The satisfaction of knowing you are making an important contribution to the future of golf.

Only the first three are actual benefits likely to be taken advantage of by many people, and they aren't exactly amazing, but they are benefits nonetheless.

Look at the history of pro players being robbed by the promoters. Or players sand bagging. Or players and mechanics here excusing criminal behavior by the world's greatest mechanic.

No, it's just another way to scam.

Bic D said:

The Waste Management Phoenix Open, known as “The Greatest Show on Grass,” held at TPC Scottsdale annually in early February. The WMPO is the best-attended golf tournament in the world with more than 700,000 fans in attendance.

The fans swizzle beer, interact with the players, screams their heads off AND, the players love it.

Make no mistake, I love the Masters and all the other majors but this tournament is incredible in a different way.

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Yes! I don't know if you have been following, but I mention the WM on this forum EVERY chance I get, and NOBODY responds with any kind of relevance. I'm glad, makes for no competition when I go to do it.
P.S.
The Mosconi Cup is alllllmost there. The problem? You have a needle nosed Euro ref trying to control the crowd sounding like a whiny B. Nobody came here to watch you yell quiet, quiet now, quiet down now. Like...F YOU! This is American buddy learn the rules!

Bob Jewett said:

depending on how much support you want to give to millionaire players.

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This speaks volumes.

Maniac

In the USGA’s defense, they only deal with millionaire players three times a year, at the men’s, women’s, and men’s senior Opens. The rest of their work is in amateur golf, administering the handicap system, and rule making.

absolutely NOT. ide give it three months before the first match is even played and the money would be stolen, misappropriated, spend stupidly and gone. pool is full of desperate people, broke people, mental cases and con artists. **** that, ill keep my money, I have a better chance of giving it to a homeless guy whos actually gonna buy food and not beer.

tc in l a said:

As a retired local govt employee (accountant) I was always amazed at how much "administrative" costs are charged to, and deducted from the funding for programs

I have the same concerns about charitable donations

This tour support would have to be managed by someone with the very highest reputation and the most transparent, public release of information on the use of funds.

Probably too much to ask for a $10.00 donation...


Oddly enough I always try to throw a few dollars to the junior pool thread here on azb

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Glen Hancock.

Yes if it's called a PPV fee.

If not, will the be operating as a 501c3 charity?

Sent from the future.

Maniac said:

As an automobile assembler for 30 years, obviously I built cars for a living.

Try living your life WITHOUT automobiles in it. Now, try living your life without pool in it.

Which one worked out better for you?

I never got one single donation from anybody in the whole thirty years I worked.

'Nuff said.

Maniac

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No one got to watch you building these cars though. And if you’re operating a machine it probably wouldn’t be very exciting. Pro pool is ‘supposed to be’ entertainment. It’s a game that takes a full time practice/play schedule for years to play at a top level, you can’t really work a job and get that good so they need help from other people usually to be able to devote all their time to this game.

As a pool player I like to see the game played at super high levels and I’m willing to help out those that can do that just to be able to watch and live vicariously through them in a way since I messed up and didn’t discover my poolness early enough. I’d probably be around an 816-817 Fargorate if I’d just discovered the game 21 years earlier. But it’s nbd. Now I watch whatever pool I can and hope for the best for those out there enjoying their time on the rock, and if a real organization comes along that can make life easier for these then I’d definitely throw them some cash. It’s just money, it’s a dumb idea but it’s what we’ve made the world into, out of necessity of course since there are too many lazy bastids that don’t provide real work or entertainment.

No

I might toss in ten dollars for craps and giggles but you put an ugly qualifier on there, "ongoing". As a young man I contributed regularly to a church. Then they sent me envelopes to send my donations in every month. This is a donation jackasses, you make it look like a bill! Forty or fifty years later I haven't made a dozen more donations to any church and nary a penny to that one.

When people get too pushy about donations, try to make them seem an obligation, would be givers dry up in a hurry. As it stands, men's pro pool in the US is in a catch-22 position. It does need money to fund an organization, however, most need to see an organization before throwing money at pro pool. How many aborted start ups have there been? I have lost count. Until I see something substantial, well planned and well organized, I'm not throwing even ten bucks into a void, definitely not committing ten bucks a year. Aside from anything else I already hear the second round of requests for donations: "Ten dollars a year wasn't enough. We didn't get the million subscribers we had expected. Can you make it ten a month?" Or fifty a year or whatever.

Looking at the people who would pay ten a year in theory looks pretty bleak, especially considering how many say they won't pay. Of those that say they won't pay, 95% or more will probably hold that line. Of those that say they will pay, maybe 20% will pay and that would be a big number. Not that they don't have good intentions, most don't follow through on those intentions though.

Also, as others have suggested, why not get something in return for the ten bucks or whatever? Making it twenty and getting something in return for the money would probably work better. Pool tips or lessons from the pro's on youtube, exclusively for patrons of the organization. A very little time and money spent to produce them, Very pleasing to viewers. The pro's could be paid a few bucks for their efforts, everybody happy.

That is the key to anything successful, a win/win situation. No matter what anyone says, they will soon tire of sending money into a black hole with no return.

Just my thoughts,
Hu

JazzyJeff87 said:

No one got to watch you building these cars though. And if you’re operating a machine it probably wouldn’t be very exciting. Pro pool is ‘supposed to be’ entertainment.

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Well...there were plant tours. :thumbup:

While riding in your car is neither entertaining or exciting, it does give one a necessary form of transportation. What's more important to you in your life, a car for transportation or pool to keep you entertained? Don't answer that until you've first tried riding a horse to your place of employment or to your next pool tournament. :wink:

I my OP I wasn't complaining about not getting any outside help/donations from anyone. I just wanted to emphasize that I had to earn every penny I made supplying the public with a better/necessary form of transportation.

IMO, if a pool organization cannot produce a product that is self-sustaining, then it obviously is not supplying a product that has entertaining value to the masses and needs not to exist.

Now....if it were possible to make pool more exciting/watchable...….

Maniac

Maniac said:

Well..:thumbup:

IMO, if a pool organization cannot produce a product that is self-sustaining, then it obviously is not supplying a product that has entertaining value to the masses and needs not to exist.

Maniac

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An that is the crux of the issue.

Maniac said:

Well...there were plant tours. :thumbup:

While riding in your car is neither entertaining or exciting, it does give one a necessary form of transportation. What's more important to you in your life, a car for transportation or pool to keep you entertained? Don't answer that until you've first tried riding a horse to your place of employment or to your next pool tournament. :wink:

I my OP I wasn't complaining about not getting any outside help/donations from anyone. I just wanted to emphasize that I had to earn every penny I made supplying the public with a better/necessary form of transportation.

IMO, if a pool organization cannot produce a product that is self-sustaining, then it obviously is not supplying a product that has entertaining value to the masses and needs not to exist.

Now....if it were possible to make pool more exciting/watchable...….

Maniac

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Yeah man I got you. Pool is more of a cult following than anything, it’s a small world that depends on donations a lot I’d imagine. Fans that have big dollars sponsoring tournaments and such. Big companies like predator too I spose, though that’s more advertising.

I used to walk to work along the train tracks. I loved it. Felt like stand by me or whatever that movie was. I’d see sketchy characters sometimes and people would eyeball me like I was a sketchy character. Rainy days werent fun going to work but were awesome leaving work.

I found a nice kershaw one day, and a gram of coke once :grin-square: , and a scattering of live .45 rounds that led me to a loaded gun with the bottom of the magazine ripped off, thrown out at high speed. That was on the road though, I don’t remember why I was off the tracks that day. You miss a lot from the car.

This was after I lost my ride and had my life upended by freakin Mormons (no offense) and decided to work like everyone else. But aaanyway...all I’m saying is I like pool enough to try to help, but only if I know it’s actually helping.

JazzyJeff87 said:

Yeah man I got you. Pool is more of a cult following than anything, it’s a small world that depends on donations a lot I’d imagine. Fans that have big dollars sponsoring tournaments and such. Big companies like predator too I spose, though that’s more advertising.

I used to walk to work along the train tracks. I loved it. Felt like stand by me or whatever that movie was. I’d see sketchy characters sometimes and people would eyeball me like I was a sketchy character. Rainy days werent fun going to work but were awesome leaving work.

I found a nice kershaw one day, and a gram of coke once :grin-square: , and a scattering of live .45 rounds that led me to a loaded gun with the bottom of the magazine ripped off, thrown out at high speed. That was on the road though, I don’t remember why I was off the tracks that day. You miss a lot from the car.

This was after I lost my ride and had my life upended by freakin Mormons (no offense) and decided to work like everyone else. But aaanyway...all I’m saying is I like pool enough to try to help, but only if I know it’s actually helping.

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JJ.....we gotta hear about the Mormons....tell me more, mon