By ALEX MICELI
Golfweek contributorThe future of the PGA Tour’s Wachovia Championship was placed in doubt Sept. 29 after Citigroup agreed to acquire Wachovia Corp.’s banking operations.
“I haven’t talked to Wachovia at this point, but I look forward to sitting down with them in the near future,” Kym Houghman, tournament director of the Wachovia Championship, said Sept. 29. “In the meantime, it will be business as usual as we continue our preparations for the 2009 tournament.”
Phone messages left with Wachovia were not immediately returned to
Golfweek.
Wachovia took the unusual step in May of extending its sponsorship to 2014. However, with previously announced layoffs of 6,950 employees in mid-August and the proposed sale, it is unclear whether Wachovia might be around for an extension of the May event at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, N.C.
Seth Waugh, chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank, said any short-term fallout likely will be muted because sponsors are “locked in” to agreements.
“If the contracts were up right now,” said Waugh, whose employer sponsors the annual Deutsche Bank Championship, “you’d lose a lot of folks because it’s just hard to justify the incremental dollars when it’s people’s jobs opposed to branding.”
Messages left with the PGA Tour were not immediately returned. However, commissioner Tim Finchem, speaking recently, addressed “the volatility in the economy.”
“We’ll do everything we can to continue to drive value and communicate that investment in our sport with the hopes that we can get through this with very little damage.”
Posted: 9/29/2008
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