I'm Fed Up Of Tournament Clashes In Pro Golf And I Have Proof (From A Tour CEO) They're Completely Avoidable

As a huge fan of almost every sport and a particular supporter of this great game, I believe there's hardly anything better than a full day of live action back to back without interruption and a healthy stretch of golf at its heart.

But on the flip side, competing events on different channels or streaming sites are a source of real frustration, with fans forced to flick between sports rather than honing all in on one.

It's like picking which of your own children you'd like to spend time with... I'd imagine.

So when one of the sports (and hardly the biggest on the planet) decides to compete against itself almost every week, you have to wonder what's going on behind the scenes that's allowing this to happen.

In so many ways, golf is not at all like other sports. There are competing tours all around the world which each claim to be the best and the whole point of the game is to do as little of it as possible.

But with so much potential as one of the world's fastest growing sports, I can't help but feel golf would be in much ruder health if there was a little more collaboration and a little less squabbling going on.

The fact it continues to fight itself when there's not that many eyeballs on it to begin with, especially compared to the likes of the big four and soccer, is just crazy to me.

Of course I understand to a point that competition is good, but all we hear as golf fans is the respective tours banging on about "growing the game" via their own selfish means.

Hold on a second, everyone. Have you thought about working together for a second to really allow the sport to thrive? For a number of reasons, I can't imagine so.

The closest we've come to real teamwork in recent years is the PGA Tour, Asian Tour and DP World Tour agreeing to form a kind of global fall series. It might not be the perfect plan but it's progress at least.

For the rest of the year, it seems like every week is a clash between two or three excellent golf tournaments.

We've written on a number of occasions how golf is shooting itself in the foot over scheduling clashes, particularly when it comes to women's Majors.

The question of whether tours talk to each other in order to try and avoid these clashes comes up now and again, but it's quickly forgotten about and life moves on. I find that so frustrating.

However, after our latest entry into the space where it was suggested golf is missing a trick over scheduling conflicts, I decided to go to source and ask a tour's CEO once and for all whether they bother speaking to each other and if more could be done to help everyone enjoy a healthy slice of the golfing pie.

So, Asian Tour CEO Cho Minn Thant, tell the lovely readers whether tours talk to each other over schedules...

"We talk a lot," he told me during a recent interview. "Sometimes it's possible to shuffle them around and sometimes not.

"We just couldn't avoid the [Asian Tour's] Hong Kong Open and [DP World Tour's] Genesis Championship [in October].

"But, for example, we talked to the Australian Tour and we look at where the Australian PGA Championship and the Australian Open are and try not to clash the Saudi International with those two tournaments because we've got such a big crossover in membership between us and the PGA Tour of Australasia.

"We try and do our best not to clash our bigger tournaments with the bigger tournaments in Japan and Korea as well. It's not always possible."

Certain factors make clashes unavoidable and I completely understand it's going to happen from time to time.

That's fine. But what I can't abide is women's Majors and the Solheim Cup having its moment in the sun blocked out by a men's tour event.

And as we now know, it's obviously possible to prevent that from happening. It just requires a little foresight and a dash of common sense.

Thant continued: "We try to sort it 8-10 months in advance. So we had this situation last year where the Hong Kong Open happened to be the same week as the Asia Pacific Amateur Championship.

"Even though the Asian Amateur is an amateur event, it's also an Open and Masters qualifying event in Asia, but so was Hong Kong. And we moved Hong Kong so that it wouldn't clash with the Asian Amateur, just because The Masters and The Open were involved in both tournaments.

"I know there was a clash between the Presidents Cup and the Asian Games this year... and Tom Kim was listed to play in the Asian Games but is obviously a part of the Presidents Cup as well.

"I think the Asian Games moved on account of the Presidents Cup, so it is possible. And I think if Tom Kim had to pick between those two events, it would have been impossible, so I'm glad they moved it."

So there you have it. In a nutshell, it is absolutely possible for various tours to communicate just a little bit in order to serve the game as a whole.

Will they start to do it moving forward? I won't hold my breath. For now, it's the women's game and the fans who will suffer most.