Deane Beman - "The Coup Attempt" SHORT TRACK

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

You must have faced some tests of the model. I recall vaguely, some of the top players uh threatening to perhaps even go out on their own, create their own deal. Uh take us through that experience.

Deane Beman 0:30

Well, early in the 80s, um it it it it became a um there there was a real there was a real clash. Um I I can remember like it was yesterday, the players uh went to Memorial Tournament in uh Dublin, Ohio, and out of that came a letter signed by, I believe, uh 12 or 14 players, led by Jack Nicholas, Arnold Palmer, and Tom Watson, and uh and and and really led by their managers, okay, that basically said uh uh we do not want the tour to uh to uh uh endorse products. We don't want them to own golf courses. We already had the tournament players club, and and we're in the in the process of doing two or three more. We don't want them to own and operate golf courses, we don't want them to uh have commercial. Uh we want the tour to go back and just run tournaments like Joe Dye did, basically. And they wanted uh they did they didn't they wanted me gone and they wanted to hire somebody who just great at running tournaments to be the commissioner. So that's that's that's what happened. They petitioned the policy board, uh uh wrote their name and signed the letter, and basically said, we uh all this stuff that Beaman's doing, we don't uh we don't agree with. Um and that's that's that's part of history. That's what happened.

Mike Gonzalez 2:22

So what was your initial reaction to that letter?

Deane Beman 2:25

Well, my my reaction uh first of all, he didn't send the letter to me, they sent it to the chairman of the board. And he he then sent a copy to me. Uh I got it second hand. Um I I I looked at it and basically told uh Del DeWent, who was chairman of the board, he was chair, he was he was chairman of the board of Eaton Corporation in in uh in Cleveland, Ohio. And I told him that I said, um, you know, um this is not a this is not a business. This is a we're running it like a business, but this is not a business. The players own the PGA tour. If this uh is carried through, the answer is is uh I'm f I'm I'm out of here. Um and I negotiated a deal with Dell. I had two years left on my contract. Uh the current contract, maybe three. And I said, the tour does not want tournament players clubs. They don't want the marketing program, uh, they don't like the commercialization of what's happened. I said, if that happens, the answer is we're going to drift back to where the tour was when Joe Dye ran it. Uh I'm not I didn't come here to do that. So um I built the Tournament Players Club uh and I asked the board uh for the my support for doing they agreed to let me do it, but they also said they were not gonna put a nickel in it. Not one dollar will they put in it. So I built the original Tournament Players Club with no money. They didn't put a nickel in it. I said if we I will do everything in my power to win this battle. But if we lose this battle, which I want you to know, uh we need to get lucky to win it. Uh you can have my contract and I own the players club because I built it for nothing. And the tour didn't put it in there, and they don't want it, I want it. So he agreed to do that. He agreed to give me the tournament players' clubs. We had two or three at the time. And I agreed to give my contract for nothing if we lost. Well, um Dell said, he says, you know, we can win this. We you know, we have corporate battles like this all the time. And I said, This is different. The players uh aren't minor, the players aren't minor uh shareholders, they are the tour, they own the tour. So I I went back and read the letter a dozen times. And whoever wrote the letter, who whether it was Jack Nicholas's representative or whether it's Arnold's or whether it was Tom Watson's, they made a drastic error in about three words. Because if they'd only said, We as players do not want you to do this, we would have lost and we wouldn't have been able to do those things. But what they also said was and added a couple little uh words that were the lifesaver of the tour today, that we believe you have exceeded your authority by doing what you're doing. And I said to Dell, I said, Dell, we haven't exceeded our authority. And I I pulled the original papers that were in our archives because they no longer existed because we had abandoned the Delaware Corporation. We were now a nonprofit. I pulled out the original incorporating documents of Delaware that I read in the first two months when I wasn't even commissioner and recited to him what those papers said, which was the tour could it said specifically own golf courses, it could license, it could sell its name, it could, it was specifically, as every document for a major corporation, it's the broadest thing in the world. Okay, you may never do it, but the authorization is there. And lo and behold, do you know whose name was on those papers? Jack Nicholas was one of the original board members.

Bruce Devlin 7:34

Interesting.

Deane Beman 7:35

So I got Jim Colbert, who was a board member at the time, and agreed with what we were doing. I got, I didn't want a personal confrontation with Jack Nicholas. I got Jimmy Colbert to take those papers and meet with Jack Nicholas. And it turns out Jack was gone coming to Washington, D.C. We weren't there anymore. But Jim Colbert got on Jack's airplane with him and sat down with him and said, uh, and and he this is what he told me, he told Jack. He said, Jack, he said, uh, we want you to withdraw your letter. And Jack said, Well, why would I do that? He said, Well, because you've impugned the integrity of the commissioner, the entire board, and the corporate executives. And that and we had some powerful corporate executives. We had the chairman of Merrill Lynch, we had the chairman of uh Eton Corporation, we had the chairman of Coca-Cola, we had all these chairmen of major corporations. He said, Jack, if you don't withdraw your letter, we don't have much money in the till, but we will spend it all to destroy your personal reputation with every corporation in this country, and you'll never get another contract. He said, Well, why would you do that? He said, Because it is authorized. You've impugned their integrity by saying that they have exceeded their authority. And he pulled out the papers and showed them that the written documents, original incorporation and Delaware, provided for all of these. It was not, it was not something that was uh done without authorization. And then went to the last page, and Jack said, Well, hell, who agreed to this? And Jimmy Colbert said, Jack, you did. He said, What? And he showed him the name on the written documents. And then that's when Jack went to Arnold and said, Hey, we got a problem. And they withdraw. They we never fought the battle. They withdrew, they withdrew this uh paper.

Bruce Devlin 10:00

You know something, Dean? You guys kept that very, very quiet because this is the very first time that I ever heard anything about that.

Deane Beman 10:11

Well, that's what happened. That's why they withdrew. They withdrew. They withdrew because J Jimmy Colbert threatened Jack and said, We'll do everything we can to restore. I don't think any major corporation will ever put a nickel in your pocket again, because you have impugned the integrity of all these people who have served as the board of the PGA Tour, and we've never paid them a nickel. They've done it on their own.

Bruce Devlin 10:42

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 10:43

That's that's a fascinating story, Dean.

Bruce Devlin 10:45

And and uh It is, Dean.

Mike Gonzalez 10:47

I suppose, Bruce, the players ought to have a Jimmy Colbert day after hearing this story, huh?

Bruce Devlin 10:52

Yeah, well, you know, like I said, uh this is the first time I've ever heard about that. Dean, one question relative to that.

Intro Music 10:59

Yes.

Bruce Devlin 11:00

From the day, from the day you got that letter until they withdrew, what was the what time frame was that?

Deane Beman 11:09

Uh well, Jack's tournament was in May, and uh the meeting was during Westchester, which would have been late May, early early June, maybe just before the US. It was only a matter of a couple weeks.

Bruce Devlin 11:23

Uh that's what I figured because I'll bet I'll bet uh I'll bet 90 nine 98% of the players knew nothing about this.

Deane Beman 11:33

Uh well, we didn't we didn't want anybody to know about it.

Bruce Devlin 11:37

Right, I know that. I mean, it's remarkable.

Deane Beman 11:40

Winning that battle, I just want you guys to know, winning that battle cost me about a billion, half a billion dollars. Because today the term to play is a network of some 30 or 40 golf courses around the world are worth about a half a billion dollars.

Bruce Devlin 11:57

That's right.

Mike Gonzalez 11:58

And you could have been the owner. Uh well. Uh I think you really wouldn't wanted to win the battle, though.

Deane Beman 12:07

Oh, yeah. I listen, I didn't there was no question in my mind that uh that we needed to win that battle. Yeah but uh nobody knew what Jack's reaction to that would be.

Mike Gonzalez 12:18

Okay?

Intro Music 12:19

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 12:20

And and not many knew how close the tour as we know it today was teetering on the brink.

Deane Beman 12:27

Well, nobody knows how lucky everybody uh that that cares about golf and cares about the tour and plays on the tour, that whoever wrote that letter added those few words. They didn't need to add those words. They were just uh added, okay?

Intro Music 12:48

Yeah, yeah.

Deane Beman 12:49

If the players had simply said, we don't want you to do this, we couldn't have done it. Then it started.

Mike Gonzalez 12:56

We hope you've enjoyed this short track of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends. Until we tee it up again, for the good of the game, it's along the fairway.

Intro Music 13:20

It went smack down the fairway. Like head is as long as you're still in the state, you're okay.