The Greatest No-Show on Grass

As an excuse to get loaded with half a million of your closest polo-shirted friends and at least one major airline executive, you can’t get much better than the FBR Open. The PGA Tour’s fifth-oldest and highest-attended tournament pops the cork on its weeklong drunkfest on Monday, January 28.

The former Phoenix Open may lack the class and prestige of the Masters, the cutthroat intensity of the U.S. Open, and the star power of any PGA event that will feature Tiger Woods (the world’s best golfer will miss the FBR for the eighth straight year, opting again to play at the Abu Dhabi in Dubai), but “The Greatest Show on Grass” does have at least a couple of things those stuffy affairs don’t: KC and the Sunshine Band (getting down tonight on January 31 at the tournament’s party central, the Birds Nest, where U.S. Airways CEO Doug Parker tipped a few too many last year and was popped for DUI), and just-down-the-street access to Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, which will kick off on February 3 just minutes after somebody not named Tiger hoists that not instantly recognizable big glass FBR Open trophy.