Some of America's ranking sports cities, including Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Milwaukee and Denver, have been knocked off the PGA Tour's regular calendar.
Others, including Seattle, Portland, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Indianapolis, can't get a steady PGA Tour date.
Not even Las Vegas can get anything better than an after-the-dance-is-over, mop-up-and-go-home tournament in October.
And yet dusty, old and beaten-down Tucson, 60 miles from the Mexican frontier and a hundred miles from big-time sports, enters its 67th year in the PGA Tour rotation.
By any of its 13 names and on any of its eight golf courses, the "Tucson Open" has never been better than it is today, 2012. Tiger Woods plays here. Almost to a man, the Ryder Cup teams, America and Europe, play here.
Some rich guys hired Jack Nicklaus to build a world-class golf course, the Ritz-Carlton people built a hotel, and for the sixth consecutive winter the good people at Accenture, NBC and the World Golf Championships umbrella sponsors are throwing $8 million into the kitty.
What did we do to deserve this good fortune?
Every time I hear someone groan that (a) It's too far to Dove Mountain and (b) It's not exactly cheap - or worse, that they'd rather watch on TV - I am tempted to hit them in the eyeballs with a list of previous Tucson sporting events that died for lack of support.
A bowl game.
The Pro Bowler's Tour.
The LGPA Tour.
USA Baseball.
The Pacific Coast League.
Spring training baseball.
This is the last best chance to save Tucson's spot on the PGA Tour. If you don't go now, forever let it be known that the PGA Tour will find somewhere else to send the world's 64 leading golfers.
Because Tucsonans did not turn out in significant numbers after the inaugural WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in 2007, we have essentially been on a year-to-year basis. Now it's day to day.
Pardon me for being pushy, but here are five reasons you should climb off your sofa, drive north to Dove Mountain Boulevard and put up a fight to save the most prestigious sports event in Tucson history:
1. Star power. Do you realize that Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Ben Crenshaw, Curtis Strange, Lanny Wadkins, Fuzzy Zoeller, Vijay Singh and Steve Stricker all finished second in various incarnations of the Tucson Open?
Yes, they were all No. 2. They were overpowered by better golfers (that particular week).
In the past 66 PGA Tour stops in Tucson, the championship has been won by Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Phil Mickelson and Johnny Miller.
Who's next, Rory McIlroy?
2. You can tell your grandchildren you saw Ian Poulter wearing purple shoes and a pink shirt. And he won it all in 2010.
3. In 1961, for lack of imagination (and a title sponsor), the Tucson Open was called "The Home of the Sun Invitational."
But because Tucson wasn't yet jaded by the presence of international golf stars, thousands of people lined the fairways at the, ahem, less-than-glitzy El Rio Golf Club to watch one of just 18 events on the 1961 PGA Tour schedule.
Perhaps in 1961 the scare of losing the PGA Tour was still fresh.
In 1954, out of money and ideas, Tucson gave up its nine-year run on the PGA Tour and stepped away from pro golf. That's when several key Tucson businessmen formed the Conquistadores and aggressively went in pursuit of a second chance at the PGA Tour. Once Tucson got that chance, it soon created alliances with the new Tucson National Golf Club and, shortly thereafter, NBC, cleaning up our image and reclaiming our spot in the pro golf lineup.
4. The most cherished spot in Tucson sports isn't the 50-yard line at Arizona Stadium during the Territorial Cup, or up-close seats at McKale Center when Sean Miller's team is making a late-run against UCLA.
No, the place to be is the No. 1 tee at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club on Round 1, Wednesday morning, sun shining, temperature in the 70s, waiting for Tiger Woods and 63 other golfers to walk to the tee.
It's a two-by-two process that takes four hours. You can sip a Bud, eat a hot dog or just chew on the anticipation. Watching Bubba Watson or Ernie Els hit a golf ball 320 yards into the blue-green desert landscape is poetry.
5. If the WGC people move the Match Play event to Australia or South Africa or, yuk, Phoenix, you can go back to your sofa, turn to NBC each winter and say, "I remember when they played at Dove Mountain and I kept telling myself I was going to get out there and do that follow-the-leader thing, walking in the fairway behind Tiger and Rory.
"If they ever get another golf tournament here, I'm really going to do it next time."
