Rain Checks Needed at U.S. Open

Posted by Seth Walder | Posted in Golf | Posted: June 21, 2009 at 9:29 am

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I’m not really a huge golf fan, but I have watched some of the current U.S. Open that is going on in Bethpage, N.Y. The big story of the tournament so far is not Tiger or Phil, nor is it the underdogs who are leading the Open, it’s the weather. The entire northeast is in the middle of some sort of constant, rainy mess. It looks like England. Anyway, the problem was that on the Open’s first day, Thursday, the rain prevented much golf from actually happening, so any fans present saw at most three hours of golf, and by no means were those three hours pleasant.

usga_logoThe issue is that after Thursday was rained-out, the USGA announced that they would be upholding their “policy” that there would be no compensation for fans who only got to see three lousy hours of golf as opposed to a whole day. Apparently, they took the policy off the website for a few hours on Thursday, leaving some to speculate that they would be offering refunds or rain checks for tickets, but to no avail, later on the announcement came.

I understand that it wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world to do something about it, but the fact of the matter is that these are golf’s biggest fans, who paid $100 per ticket, and traveled from all over to come to the Open because I can’t really see that many coming from Bethpage, and now they’re pissed off, and rightfully so. Just because someone hit a tee shot, they’re tickets are automatically official and can’t be changed? It really wouldn’t be that hard to set something up for people to send in their tickets for a refund, or better yet, send them in to watch play on Monday because given the way weather looks now, that’s what it will probably come to. On the whole, I just hate when professional sports organizations don’t treat fans like what they are, the sports biggest and only supporters, and customers.

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Comments (3)

Erin said on 21-06-2009

The problem with this situation and with a lot of golf courses is that most just don’t have enough space for all the spectators at a major PGA tournament. It’s understandable that Bethpage Black refused to honor Thursday tickets on Friday because they could not accommodate all those people.
It is, however, ridiculous that there was no refund given but the reason for that could be that the PGA tour is already losing millions of dollars in sponsorship money due to the fact that most of the tournament including the final rounds, which let’s face it are the most fun to watch and the only ones that matter to a lot of people, will not be on TV on the weekend when fans are not working at can watch.
The weather is especially costly to TV ratings and at-home viewers considering that the tournament falls on fathers day, a huge percentage of guys who would have spent their Sunday watching golf will now miss the end of the tournament. This is not to say that refunds should not be given but merely an potential explanation to why they weren’t
Adam said on 22-06-2009

I read somewhere that people would be allowed to come on another day if they had Thursday tickets so this entire story might be false. Monday will be an unproductive day at offices around the world.

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