Nissan Open at Riviera : Riviera Absolved : It’s Shown Club Can Still Draw a Crowd and Stage a Respectable Tournament

In the dim light of the dining room bar at Riviera Country Club, Dick Caruso could breathe a sigh of relief. By noon on Saturday the Nissan Open had drawn more in attendance than did the PGA Championship--held last August at Riviera--for the entire week.

The golf pros were once again happy with the course. The beleaguered greens held up well enough. The roughs were, well, rough. The national media, which had been critical of the course since the PGA, were once again writing about the rich tradition of Riviera.

And it even rained most of the week.

So why did this tournament draw more than 100,000 and the PGA only 57,000? Caruso, who was general chairman of the PGA Championship, said it’s because of ticket prices. The PGA cost $65 a day, this tournament $20.

A corporate hospitality sponsorship at the PGA cost about $200,000. At this tournament, the cost was $25,000.

“Unfortunately they [the PGA of America] didn’t want to listen to us,” said Caruso, who has been a member of Riviera for 35 years and runs the pro shop.

For four years Caruso worked as the club’s representative on the PGA Championship, but said he had little say in how things were done. That included the final preparation of the greens, which were cut too low at the direction of PGA officials, Caruso said.

“In a meeting that week [a PGA official] said he would take full responsibility for the tournament problems,” Caruso said. “But then they [the PGA] left town, and we were still here.”

The PGA, which is headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., has historically been successful in marketing the championship, but its plan didn’t work here. Initially, tickets were sold in blocks only for $175 for the week, and though that included parking and a couple of other perks, it didn’t go over well locally. Three months before the tournament, the PGA decided to sell two-day packages, for $100-$135. Then two weeks before the tournament, the PGA broke down and offered daily passes, but for $65 each.

“I would make the rounds of other golf courses and talk up the tournament and people would say they would be happy to buy a daily ticket for, let’s say, Friday’s round, but they had to work the other days,” Caruso said. “But even when the PGA eased up and sold daily passes, they cost too much, even if it was a major. We are not golf starved in Los Angeles, as in some of the other places where the PGA is held. Plus, there was 25 1/2 hours of the PGA on television.”

Caruso’s explanation for the poor attendance seems simple enough, but PGA officials say they still left Los Angeles shaking their heads. The 1996 PGA, which will be held at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., has already sold out, which is capped at 120,000 tickets for the week. Tickets were sold in blocks and cost nearly the same as in Los Angeles. The PGA also sold out in St. Louis in 1992 and nearly sold out the next two years, in Toledo, Ohio and in Tulsa, Okla., using the same price structure.

“Ticket prices for the PGA in Los Angeles were consistent with any other major championships,” said a PGA official who asked not to be identified. “We probably put more time and energy into marketing in Los Angeles then we did with our other cities and championships. From advertisements in golf magazines to even a billboard campaign, which we had never done before. It is not like we are a bunch of knuckleheads, but when we left Los Angeles we wondered. We left saying, ‘Why?’ ”

The PGA at Riviera also had the strongest field of any tournament that year. It included 40 of the top-ranked players in the world and 79 or the top 100 players. There were 37 international players from 14 countries.

But Caruso said the PGA refused to realize that this is a different market. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce, which successfully runs the tournament formerly known as the L.A. Open, said PGA officials didn’t ask for advice.

“L.A. is more a last-minute place,” said Kevin Boucher, director of projects for the Junior Chamber and a native of Los Angeles. “We start marketing tickets in October [for the February tournament] but few buy until the time the tournament begins. It’s always that way.”