AKRON, Ohio — There are only so many ways to express disappointment, regret or sympathy—subtly different emotions triggered by a loss that is at once significant and yet wholly routine in the business of sports overall and the paradigm shifts in professional golf. An era ends this week at a golf institution whose fame long ago outgrew this midwestern city of fading industrial might.
Firestone Country Club, founded by the man whose company became the global hub for tire manufacturing, has hosted a professional golf tournament since 1954. Some years it hosted more than one, and in 1974 it was the site of three televised golf events, which has never happened before or since. When the PGA Tour was created in 1968 in its split from the PGA of America, tour representatives had the option of retaining the Ryder Cup or the World Series of Golf at Firestone’s vaunted South Course. It chose the latter, eschewing the cash-draining biennial match-play exhibition in favor of a popular televised event with cache and potential anchored at an iconic venue.
So it’s with considerable irony that the tour is pulling up stakes after 72 years. This week’s Kaulig Companies Championship, a “major” event on the PGA Tour Champions that is more commonly known as the Senior Players Championship, will be the swan song for professional golf at Firestone, at least for the foreseeable future. The club doesn’t want to see its run end. But other constituencies are no longer dedicated to a tradition that once was so strong that a permanent media center and interview room were constructed on property…