Estate Living Digital Publication Issue 2 February 2015 | Page 21

“Oh Captain, My Captain”

...

Where the heck are you?

W

ith sincere apologies
to the great poet, Walt
Whitman, the adapted
title of this article does not,
in this case, refer to his
wondrous poem or South
Africa’s seemingly interminable
governmental problems, but to
professional golf’s European
Tour, which, for the first time
in its history, is going through
what can fairly be described
as an interregnum.

in real terms, be merely
window dressing and a case
of the tour following its legal
requirements in advertising
the role as opposed to actually
looking for someone to fill the
position.

As an aside, it is rather sad
and somewhat ironic that
a universally adopted and
well intentioned piece of
labour legislation that has been
designed to give everyone a
In choosing who will be the fair chance at a job, most of
next ‘king’, a major corporation, the time, in fact, has quite the
which is what the European opposite effect.
Tour essentially is, very much
knows who it wants to ‘crown’ In practice, it merely wastes
long before the ink on the everyone’s time by making all
paper to advertise the position those involved wade through
a process at the end of which
has even dried.
the advertiser can then finally
Therefore, all the activity appoint the person who was
advertising the job description, always earmarked for the role!
short-listing the candidates However, in terms of the
and interviewing, etc., should, European Tour, George O’Grady

(the tour’s previous CEO) has
been gone, of his own volition,
since November 2014, after
what must be said were nine
pretty successful years at the
helm.
Of course, this does not mean
the tour is a rudderless ship,
as there are still very capable
and steady hands at the top
available to captain the vessel
and keep the ‘business as
usual’ signs both up and
effective until the succession
is formally resolved.
That said, the tour has
normally enjoyed a relatively
seamless transition from one
CEO to the next, so one can
ask the question – is there
an ‘issue’? Hopes of an early
solution reported shortly after
O’Grady’s departure seems to
have slipped away. From this,
one can wonder if the favoured