The ultimate Friday
Outside of the majors and a few other tournaments, I don’t have much interest in the outcome. In fact, I often find Friday a more compelling day to watch a PGA Tour event than Sunday. Friday is “cut” day when those playing well move on and the rest go home.
This past week was the ultimate Friday. With the finals of qualifying school happening for both the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour, everything was on the line for about 300 men and women. As someone on the Golf Channel said, “this is as real as it gets. These guys are playing for jobs, not jets.”
For Canadians it was a mixed bag. Two women, Maude Aimee Leblanc and Rebecca Lee-Bentham, earned full exempt status on the LPGA Tour while Stephanie Sherlock lost out in a playoff and will get partial status. None of the nine men playing final stage qualified for the PGA Tour. Ryan Yip of Calgary missed by a single shot while Stuart Anderson and Brad Fritsch were just a couple of strokes off the magic number. All three will get full playing status on the Nationwide Tour which is a huge step up for each of them. Fritsch was there once before so it’s a return engagement for him but no doubt a welcome one as he had fallen off the radar recently.
The other six Canadians who made it to final stage will get into some Nationwide Tour events in 2012 but their schedule is uncertain and they’ll all be looking for Monday qualifying spots and perhaps Canadian Tour starts.
Final Qualifying Week never fails to deliver a full measure of heartwarming stories along with the heartbreaking ones. There’s always a guy who was pumping gas two years ago just trying to keep his game going long enough to land his dream job on the PGA Tour. Last year that guy was Matt McQuillan of Kingston who virtually gave up competitive golf for two years to tend bar but decided to give it one more shot, laboured through all three stages of q-school and made it to the PGA Tour.
This year that guy was Tommy Biershank who used to make $500 a week on a farm in North Carolina before finding enough game to make it to q-school. Biershank is 38 and has never played on the PGA Tour. He’s made it to some stage of q-school every year since 1997 but never got a card – until now.
Former PGA Tour player Jeff Maggert is going back to the big show. Major winners David Duval, Lee Janzen, Shaun Micheel and Rich Beem are not.
Bob May, who almost beat Tiger Woods in the PGA Championship 11 years ago, has battled back problems for many years but was finally healthy in 2011. He was in contention for four rounds but lost it on Sunday and Monday and now heads back to the Nationwide Tour. Likewise Canadian Adam Hadwin. Sitting pretty after three rounds, Hadwin just needed to shoot 1-under over his final three rounds to hit the number. Instead he blew up and didn’t even make the full Nationwide number.
Pedigrees, education, experience, even genes don’t seem to matter. Ty Tryon made it to the PGA Tour as a 17 year old and ten years later hasn’t had another sniff, despite two successive years at final stage. This year he finished second last. Arnold Palmer’s grandson Sam Saunders may have the best genes in the field but it doesn’t matter if you can’t sink putts. He’ll have to make do with another year on the junior circuit.
For every player there’s a story. Some of them have happy endings. Those will be the guys you see crying on TV. Others are not so happy. Most of them appear to be in shock. The consolation for all the players who make it to the finals of q-school is they will all have some status on a tour next year. Even for those with partial playing privileges on the Nationwide Tour, they can still earn a living and hone their game while they wait for another chance next year.
For really compelling TV, maybe they ought to televise the last day of second stage. That’s where they’re really playing for a job. Make it through and at least you have a spot on the Nationwide Tour. Fail to move on and you’re working in the back shop for minimum wage and playing for your own money on the mini tours.
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The PGA Tour has it pretty much figured out when it comes to qualifying school. Not so with the LPGA Tour. Unlike the Top 25 and ties scenario for the PGA Tour, the LPGA Tour still thinks it needs a playoff to decide who gets into their top 20 if there’s a tie – even after two stages of q-school and 162 holes. This year 9 girls tied for 20th spot and one of them was Stephanie Sherlock of Barrie. She didn’t win the playoff so will start the year with something less than a full schedule.
The LPGA Tour denotes player status in terms of priority list categories. Category 11 players have full status, Category 16 are something less than full status and Category 20 are even further down the pecking order. Nobody knows for sure what any of the categories mean and how many events players will get into. They should rename them Hazy, Fuzzy and Really Bleak.
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One final thought on the events of the past week. While q-school participants were grinding it our for a chance to play on any Tour, eighteen of the richest golfers on the planet were playing a giggler over at Sherwood Country Club for several million bucks and a mitt full of world ranking points. Hardly seems fair. By the way, who won?
Labour Day Observations
There’s still something fundamentally flawed about the FedEx Cup playoffs. It’s this perpetual blending of the regular season and the post season. With the possible exception of NASCAR, of which I’m totally ignorant, no other sport I can think of continues to reward regular season play into the various playoff rounds. Sure it makes sense to establish seedings based on what happens during the year but once the playoffs start, it should be perform or be eliminated. This past weekend is a perfect example. A number of players missed the cut at the Deutsche Bank Championship but are still exempt into the next round based on accumulated points. The silliness climaxes at the Tour Championship where one player can win the final event while another can win the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Commissioner Finchem says the FedEx Cup playoffs are working just fine after a few tweaks during preceeding years. That likely means the sponsor isn’t getting as many irate phone calls from golf fans who can’t figure the whole shebang. And while I’m on this mini rant, what’s with the Fall Series? It’s like the season starts up again and makes some of those players who qualified for the playoffs vulnerable to losing their card because a bunch of players who didn’t make the playoffs suddenly get hot and bump out the other guys. Confused yet?
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Had to say I was intrigued when Webb teed it up against Chez in the Deutsche Bank playoff. At the start of the day Bo, Hunter and Bubba were also in the mix.
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While there were only three tournaments to report in this week’s Bulletin, it’s the first time I can recall not having any Canadians make the cut. None of them played the Deutsche Bank Championship or the Omega European Masters but at The Nationwide event there were four Canadian players in the field and none made it to weekend play. It’s not looking too good for any of them to make it to the PGA Tour next year based on a Top 25 finish. By my count Jon Mills has missed the cut in his last eight starts and continues to slip down the money list.
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What a bounce back for Alena Sharp at the PGA Women’s Championship held at Bayview last week. After missing the cut at the CN Canadian Women’s Open the week before, Sharp put it together to dominate the field, except for 16-year-old Anna Kim of Toronto. Sharp needed an extra day and eight extra holes to eliminate the teenager in a playoff but the win may be the confidence boost she needs to see some better finishes on the LPGA Tour.
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Finally, a sad note to close. Last week, the Canadian golf industry lost a friend and contributer when Norm Woods died after a relatively short battle with cancer. Norm was 67 and had started GolfScene magazine a dozen years ago, at an age when many are contemplating retirement. Always a consummate salesman, Norm was a likeable guy with a sharp wit and a kind word. He and I first crossed paths shortly after I started Fairways Magazine and although he’d only been a publisher for a year longer, he always had helpful hints and good advice. Sometimes we competed but more often it was a friendly collaboration. Over the years we travelled together on media trips or attended the same functions where we had the chance to play golf and dine together or just relax with a drink. It was always low key but very enjoyable. For those who knew Norm, you didn’t always know when he was in the room, until one of his zingers made you abundantly aware of his presence. There was a pretty good turnout from the Canadian golf media at the Celebration of Norm’s Life last Thursday at Whistle Bear. Some funny stories and a few pops turned out to be a great way to say goodbye to a friend and colleague who will be missed.
Home rulings let couch potatoes be part of the action too
It’s just Week Three of the TV golf season and already we’ve had two home rulings. Maybe this is the way of the future. Should the Rules Officials be worried about their jobs?
I doubt it. In fact I think you’ll see both the PGA Tour and the European Tour move quickly to make modifications that eliminate these retroactive disqualifications.
Obviously too late for Camilo Villegas or Padraig Harrington. Or countless other players whose cheating ways were picked up by the viewing public.
The first instance of a player getting caught that I can recall goes back twenty-five years to Craig Stadler, who found his ball under a pine tree and had to make his next shot on his knees. Stadler placed a towel on the ground, knelt on it and hit the shot.
There’s no way that Stadler was trying to gain an advantage by building a stance with his towel – he just didn’t want to get his pants dirty, which is pretty ironic since most of the time Stads looked like an unmade bed.
However, some rules vigilante sitting at home noticed Stadler’s egregious breach. Between handfuls of party mix and well into his second glass of merlot, the couch potato managed to call the PGA Tour office and report the cheatin’ bastard. It was after the round, and more importantly, after Stadler had signed his scorecard, so he was disqualified for signing for an incorrect score, having not assessed himself the requisite two stroke penalty for building a stance.
There was no suggestion that Stadler intentionally cheated, he just had an uncharacteristic bout of poofiness. But apparently that’s grounds for disqualification on the PGA Tour.
The home ruling is distressful in several ways. Only players in contention are likely to get caught with the home ruling because they’re the only ones who get seen on TV. (Unless you’re Tiger Woods but that’s a different topic). So it’s not a level playing field since some players are more scrutinized than others.
In almost every case the player is unaware that he did anything wrong, so he signs his scorecard in the sincere belief that it is correct. The home ruling usually occurs well afterward, so under the current rules, the only option is disqualification. I think this is where the fastest remedy can occur. Both Tours should institute a rule that permits a retroactive penalty instead of disqualification if it can be shown that there was no intent to cheat.
The final issue I have with these home rulings is they almost always involve niggling obscure rules. OK, let’s take a moment for the purists to gather themselves here. Yes, I know – a rule is a rule is a rule. But let’s get real here. The Rules of Golf didn’t get handed down from Mount Olympus, so we’re not heading into uncharted waters here when we suggest some re-thinking of the rules might be warranted.
For those who saw the video from Abu Dhabi last week, Padraig Harrington’s ball did move – about half a dimple. He thought it oscillated, which is OK. A viewer said it moved, which is not. Did it make a difference to Harrington’s position on the green? Obviously not. But, a rule is a rule, so Padraig had an extra few days off to enjoy the sights and sounds of the United Arab Emirates instead of contending for the title after his opening round 65.
In the NFL, even the on-field officials admit they could probably call holding on every play. Can you imagine if they allowed viewers to phone in infractions? They’d need a call centre in India to handle the flood. The same goes for hooking and holding in hockey or travelling in basketball.
Golf is unique among sports for a lot of reasons. Players are responsible for policing themselves. With relatively few exceptions, they make the right call almost all the time, even when it is to their detriment. Until the Stadler incident, professional golfers had the matter pretty much under control. However, constantly improving technology has made it possible for golf to come under greater scrutiny from home based viewers and this will only increase as the technology gets even better. Home rulings are bound to increase too.
I expect announcements maybe as early as this week from the PGA Tour and the European Tour to amend the disqualification provision for players caught retroactively. It’s likely that a 2-stroke penalty will be added to the player’s score but no disqualification.
Of course that doesn’t address the ongoing issue of home rulings. It’s a very strange situation. In a sport that has always insisted it didn’t need referees or umpires, TV has spawned a whole new game where home viewers are part of the action too.
No tournament is really over until the last viewer has signed off.
The absurdity of it all
Happy New Year!
The PGA Tour kicks off today. I have lost count of how many of the top players made significant changes since the end of last season. Mike Weir, Sean O’Hair, Ernie Els and Camilo Villegas will all have new caddies. Graeme McDowell, Jim Furyk, Trevor Immelman, Tim Clark and Jeff Overton have changed equipment companies. Six of the top ten players in the world are Europeans and three of them – Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Rory McIlroy – have all decided to stay home this year where they can earn big bucks in appearance fees on the Euro Tour.
Lots of changes announced. Lots of reasons given. Why do they always say it’s not about the money?
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And while we’re pondering that money issue, is RBC on thin ice with the PGA Tour’s appearance fee regulation? By signing Jim Furyk, Ernie Els and Matt Kuchar as “player ambassadors” to go along with Mike Weir, Anthony Kim, Fred Couples, Luke Donald and Stephen Ames, RBC has essentially secured the services of these top players for the, yup, you guessed it, RBC Canadian Open. I expect the Bank and the PGA Tour worked all this out ahead of time but its looks very similar to the kind of thing that some of the big international liquor companies used to do for Euro players. And were roundly criticized for by the PGA Tour Commissioner.
Of course, after GM did it for Tiger, nobody had much to say about appearance fees anymore.
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The LPGA Tour announces its schedule today but word has apparently leaked out that the first North American stop will be a new event in Phoenix that will not have any prize money for the players. It’s billed as a regular Tour stop but all the money will go to charity. Can’t imagine the Ladies are thrilled with this.
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My friend Darren says he’s played Pebble Beach over a dozen times.
Note to Darren: Dude, you’ve never even been to California! Playing Pebble Beach on a golf simulator doesn’t count.
Or does it?
The makers of EA Sports are sure trying to sell us on the idea that we’ll never get to play Augusta National for real but the next best thing is their latest course offering that will be released to the public at the end of March. According to the pre-launch hype, this is their best yet and is so real you can practically smell the azaleas.
Don’t get me wrong. In the dead of winter, when you need a golf fix, golf simulators are a terrific way to keep your game sharp, have some fun with friends and experience some of the classic courses from around the world. The graphics are so good now it really is like being there. Almost.
I expect there will come a time when people can say they’re golfers yet have never set foot on a real course. The next step I suppose is some Vulcan mind-meld that lets you think you experienced something but it’s really just an implanted dream sequence. Kind of like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall.
To me it all gets a little absurd. Have we evolved or maybe devolved to the point where things are only real if you can see or do them on your computer or smart phone?
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And from the “Just when you think you’ve seen it all” department:
Standard practice before a curling game is for the vice skips to flip a coin to see who has last rock in the first end. On Monday night, not a single coin could be found amongst the eight curlers on our sheet and the usual spots where people leave a penny for just such an occasion yielded nothing. However one of the guys on the other team had his Blackberry with him and it had a coin flipping app on it! Who knew?
Finchem is caught in a squeeze
In one of the stranger press releases over the weekend it was announced that the PGA Tour Policy Board will probably reject the “Designated Event” plan for 2011. This was Tim Finchem’s solution to get some of the world’s top players into the weaker field events.
Davis Love, a Policy Board member, indicated the new rule had been passed in July but that something of this magnitude actually has to be passed twice and that ratification at the upcoming meeting likely won’t happen. Instead, players will be asked to “help” certain events on a voluntary basis.
As if that’s going to happen. Don’t count on seeing Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson or Ernie Els at the RBC Canadian Open anytime soon.
Love explained that designating an event castes it in an unfavourable light. He used the McGladrey Classic, of which he is the host, as an example.
“We wouldn’t want to be designated,” Love said. “ ‘Tiger played XYZ, but they made him’ ’’ Love said. “That’s going to look bad, even though that’ll sell tickets.”
That’s Love’s opinion but it’s more likely there are a few tournament directors who would gladly accept the stigma if they could get Woods to show up. Tournaments that have been struggling for years because of a bad date on the schedule aren’t concerned about vanity – they’re looking at survival and this move by the PGA Tour is just another slap in the face.
If you’re wondering why the Policy Board would reject a plan that could stabilize a number of events, you don’t have to look much farther than the World Rankings. As long as Woods, Mickelson, Stricker, Furyk and a handful of other American players dominated the top end of the World Rankings, Finchem and company probably felt pretty comfortable mandating that the players help the Tour by playing a certain number of designated events each year.
Now, however, Americans only hold eight of the Top 20 spots and the international players are not as beholden to the PGA Tour. In fact, Lee Westwood (#1) and Rory McIlroy (#10) have already indicated they will not take up PGA Tour membership in 2011, opting to focus on the European Tour and the majors.
More recently, Ian Poulter (#14), who has been a PGA Tour member since 2005, has pondered publicly that he too may move back home now that the European Tour has increased the mandatory number of events from 12 to 13. He wants to play both Tours but it is increasingly difficult given the mandatory requirements. (The PGA Tour requires its members to play in a minimum of 15 events to retain membership).
For people with real jobs, playing golf 18-20 weeks a year doesn’t seem like much of a hardship but the tournament schedule is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to time management. Apart from travel, there are sponsor issues, home country considerations and of course, family obligations that have to be factored into a touring professional’s planning.
A few years back, Ernie Els tried to play both the PGA Tour and the European Tour, maintaining a house in Florida, another in London and one in his native South Africa. Even with a private jet , Els acknowledged that the travel nearly killed him and it took too heavy a toll on his family.
Another consideration for European players is the Ryder Cup. It would be foolish to suggest that Americans don’t take the Ryder Cup seriously, but they’re not as passionate as their opponents. A change in selection criteria for the Euro team is likely before the 2012 confrontation but for most players the best way to get on the team is by supporting the European Tour.
With more of the world’s top players opting not to play full time in America, the last thing the PGA Tour can do is place more mandatory requirements on its members. Perhaps it should look to reduce the minimum number of required events so that we don’t have a repeat of the Seve issue. Old timers will recall that Ballesteros refused to comply with the PGA Tour’s membership requirements and North American fans were deprived of the Spaniard’s presence for all but the majors each year.
Commissioner Finchem is caught in a squeeze. Publicly he needs to offer all the support he can to the weaker field tournaments but his independent contractor players aren’t quite so beholden to him anymore. More restrictions will further alienate those with options on both sides of the pond.
Westwood and McIlroy have already decided to stay in Europe. It will be unfortunate if Martin Kaymer, Paul Casey, Ian Poulter and others do the same. A golf season without many of the world’s top ranked players won’t make life any easier for the suits in Ponte Vedra.
FedEx Cup – golf’s answer to root canal
If there is anyone out there (other than Tim Finchem) who likes the FedEx Cup playoffs, then he or she has yet to be heard from. After year 4 of the abominable format, it still does not resonate with the players, is almost impossible to follow for the fans and with two more years to run looks like it may need to be tweaked again to close some loopholes such as:
In what other sport is it possible for a player or team to miss one round of the playoffs but still come back to win it all? (Jim Furyk)
What kind of system could make it possible for one player to win the championship yet not win any event all year in either the regular season or the playoffs? (Paul Casey)
When the final game is played, it’s pretty normal for the game winner to be crowned champion but this past weekend all sorts of scenarios existed where Matt Kuchar, Luke Donald or Charlie Hoffman could have won the FedEx Cup without winning the final playoff event. A really bizarre result could have occurred if Steve Stricker had bogeyed his final two holes. That would have moved Kuchar into 24th spot earning him enough points to stay ahead of Furyk and scoop the $10,000,000.
The contract with FedEx is up in two years and my hunch is that it won’t be renewed under the same format as today. In the interim, here’s a few ideas that the PGA Tour might consider:
PGA Tour players play for money. They understand it. The fans understand it. Even the TV announcers understand it. Nobody understands points.
Playoffs are all about eliminating losers and crowning winners. No format makes sense that could allow a champion who had not won the final or had not won anything to waltz off with the crown.
Golf is a splendid sport for a winner take all scenario. Whatever the format used to get to the final, all participants should have a chance at the big prize.
Apart from the initial seedings, the regular season standings should play no part in the playoffs. The playoffs are like a season unto themselves.
Come to think of it, there is a perfect syatem that takes all of the above into consideration. It accounts for regular season success; it uses money to determine the winner; and it’s a winner take all format. Best of all, it doesn’t have to be developed in Ponte Vedra because it already exists. It’s called the Tour Championship – top 30 regular season players based on money show up for one winner take all event for $10 million and the FedEx Cup.
Isn’t there some expression about the old being new again?
Equitable isn’t always apparent when it comes to The Rules of Golf
The Rules of Golf have certainly come under some intense scrutiny this past week. First we get the ruling at the PGA Championship that Dustin Johnson grounded his club in a sand trap on the 72nd hole incurring a two-stroke penalty that knocked him out of a playoff.
On Saturday LPGA Tour veteran Juli Inkster gets DQ’d from the Safeway Classic for using a weighted ring to warm up after a rain delay. Inkster was in second place at the time.
And closer to home, Jose de Jesus Rodriguez, one of the hottest players on the Canadian Tour, fired a course record tying 61 on Saturday at the Seaforth Country Classic but left the scoring tent before signing his card. Instead of taking a three shot lead into Sunday’s final round, Rodriguez will be heading on down the road muttering something like, “what a stupid I am!”
There is no doubt in any of these examples that the players clearly breached the rules. The web traffic, blogs and editorials are pretty divided on the issue, especially about Johnson’s bunker gaffe. The video evidence is clear – he did ground his club. However, what is unclear is whether he or anybody else could tell if he really was in a bunker. On TV it looked like hard packed dirt. Spectators were walking all over the area, kids were building sand castles.
The Rules of Golf are very specific and in case there is any doubt about their application, there exists an even bigger book called the Decisions of the Rules of Golf that accounts for virtually every scenario that has been encountered in assessing the Rules. Already there’s probably a new Decision for the Johnson ruling.
What is unclear and what has never been explained to my satisfaction is the part about the Rules of Golf being equitable. OK, so Johnson grounded his club in a bunker – technically a breach. However, it’s clear from the video that he didn’t test the sand, didn’t drag any material away from the back of the ball to provide for a cleaner hit and in fact didn’t do anything at all to gain an advantage over his fellow players. So how is it “equitable” to assess him a two stroke penalty for something he wasn’t even aware was a bunker.
The Inkster situation is even weirder. Inkster could have taken a couple of wedges from her bag to warm up if she wanted to swing additional weight. Instead she uses the lead donut and gets the bum’s rush from the premises.
Not signing a scorecard is something probably every competitor has done once in their lives. And just once, because forever after, in every tournament you play, it will be indelibly etched on your brain to sign the damn thing before you get up from the table. I don’t know the specifics of the Rodriguez situation but he was undoubtedly excited after shooting a 61 and breaking the course record, he would be thinking about having a three shot lead and there would be a pile of media people waiting to talk to him. However, his caddie would be there, his fellow competitors and at least two officials of the Tour would be at the table, yet not one of them checked to see if his scorecard was signed.
It happens and I get it but it’s another golf technicality that makes no sense. It’s certainly not equitable. Rules purists will blame the player alleging that it’s his responsibility. They’re correct but that doesn’t make it right.
All of these rulings stir the pot and make for great debate but if you read the input from casual golf fans and players you’ll note an almost unanimous sentiment that they think the rules are stupid and should be changed. Most casual golfers play by their own rules so these infractions are very curious to them.
In the case of Sarah Brown, a month or so ago, the officials at a Duramed FUTURES Tour event were so convinced that Brown was using wedges with illegal grooves that they DQ’d her mid round. Turns out they were wrong and the grooves were OK. Too late for Sarah though.
To me it seems like the Rules of Golf have resulted in a lot of players being penalized for things that didn’t give them an advantage over their fellow competitors. There’s nothing equitable about that.
Someone once said, and I’m paraphrasing here a bit, “if the law results in one innocent man being hanged then the justice system is not working.” Maybe it’s time the Rules of Golf had a do-over.
Final thoughts on the Presidents Cup
Congratulations to the American Team on winning the Presidents Cup. There’ll be lots of post mortem analysis on both sides but I think the biggest factor in the US victory was that the International team let the Americans back into a handful of key matches on Friday and Saturday that, had they gone the other way, might have changed the final outcome. It didn’t seem that the Internationals ever came from behind to steal one.
One of the biggest reversals was Saturday morning when Mike Weir and Tim Clark had Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker on the ropes but couldn’t close the deal. Ironically, Weir had a similar advantage on Justin Leonard in the Sunday singles but another poor approach to the 18th handed Leonard a half point gift.
Speaking of Tim Clark, did anybody ever put on a better display of chipping and putting than this guy? I’ll echo what the NBC broadcast team repeatedly pointed out. It’s unbelievable that Clark has never won a PGA Tour event. I suspect he will soon.
The edge goes to Greg Norman in the Captain’s pick category. While Adam Scott was a dismal 1-4-0, 18-year old Japanese sensation Ryo Ishikawa won three of his matches including a short game clinic singles victory over 49-year old Kenny Perry. Meanwhile, for the US, Hunter Mahan (2-1-1) was OK but US Open champion Lucas Glover (0-3-1) looked like he wanted to be somewhere else.
I’ve never been a big fan of the captains giving on-course advice to their team but the sight of Greg Norman on the greens helping his players read putts was particular galling. With a partner plus two caddies there’s already enough input to confuse anybody. That was pretty apparent when Jim Furyk and his caddie Mike “Fluff” Cowan tried to help Sean O’Hair in the Saturday fourball. O’Hair had the putt going one way, Furyk and Cowan the other. Naturally O’Hair missed.
Harding Park has to be a clear winner after this past week’s events. The course was ideal for match play competition and it was exciting to watch the players go for the green on several short par fours when the tees were moved up a bit. Maybe overall it’s a bit short by today’s bomber standards but with tight tree-lined fairways and heavily contoured greens I think this is a course that could host a major too. Just keep Rees Jones away from it.
Woods hates to lose and seems to bring his game to another level when he has something to prove. Just ask Y.E Yang who was thoroughly thumped in the singles. Although Yang still has the Wannamaker Trophy ……. Does Retief Goosen have a pulse? ………. Is there any way to keep Kelly Tilghman off the telecast?
Clever line: Roger Maltbie is the “course whisperer.”
Oddball observations: That Ally bank commercial that featured a kid playing with a big red truck cracked me up. Even though I saw it about fifty times over four days, when he gets the cardboard truck and says, “it’s a piece of junk,” I still laughed out loud every time.
Unrelated matter: Congrats to Canadian Chris Baryla on winning this weekend’s Nationwide Tour event. He moves into 20th spot on the money list and now has a PGA Tour card pretty well guaranteed for 2010.
STRIKE THREE!
STRIKE THREE! You’re outta there!
That should be it for the FedEx Cup. Tim Finchem and the PGA Tour have had three attempts to get it right and none of them have resonated with real golf fans or the players either for that matter. So let’s bid it farewell.
Yesterday’s version of a tournament within a tournament was just further proof that the PGA Tour’s convoluted process of choosing an annual champion doesn’t work. As a golf tournament it had plenty of excitement – Phil Mickelson putting on a charge to win, hapless Kenny Perry fading in a big event once again and Tiger Woods struggling to get something going. Anytime you have the two biggest names in golf monopolizing the airtime it’s got to be good for viewers, ratings and sponsors.
Oh and by the way, in case you missed it, since Tiger finished second all alone and Steve Stricker finished in sixth, Tiger accumulates 8,327.889 points to Stricker’s 5,975.002 points thereby maintaining his slim lead over Stricker in the FedEx Cup points race while Mickelson’s 9,114 ½ points for winning isn’t quite enough to catch Tiger but is enough to move from fourteenth spot past Stricker into second place. And if you find that a bit confusing let me refer you to this projected points list once again. Aaaaaagh!
So the bottom line is that Phil wins but finishes second and Tiger finishes second but wins.
I’ve racked my brain to think of a parallel situation in another sport where someone can win the season championship without winning the final game. I can’t think of one. Maybe one exists but I doubt it, because all other sports recognize the ridiculousness of that scenario.
The PGA Tour has pushed an assortment of playoff formats at us over the past three years thanks to the deep pockets of Federal Express. But even the FedEx folks must be tired of the negative feedback that their sponsored program generates. Pardon the pun, but this package is undeliverable.
Nobody will remember or care how many FedEx Cups Tiger or anybody else won after their career is over. Quick, how many Money Titles did Jack Nicklaus win? I suspect relatively few people can answer that but most every golf fan knows Jack won 18 professional majors. (Correct answer is 8).
The truth is that golf, like tennis, is measured by major championships. No amount of fiddling by Emperor Finchem is going to change that.
So assuming that my voice, like so many others, falls on deaf ears down in Ponte Vedra, and 2010 sees yet another version of the FedEx Cup, let’s see how we can make it better.
First, let’s eliminate FedEx Cup points. Players play for money, not points. And the whole points system is confusing. Currently the Tour uses the Top 125 on the Money List to determine who gets a card for the next year so why not use the same number for the playoffs.
Second, to be a true playoff, winners have to advance and losers go home. This scares the Tour because some of the biggest stars (Tiger) might not be around at the finish. Too bad. At least it passes the smell test with most fans, something that the FedEx Cup points re-setting formula never did.
Third, scale the playoffs back to three events and complete the whole thing by the week after Labour Day. If you’re so afraid of going head-to-head with the NFL, then don’t.
In my version of the playoffs, the field gets cut from 125 to 70 after the first event, down to 30 after the second and then gets cut twice more to 16 and 8 after Round 2 and Round 3 of the final. On Sunday, eight guys start even and play for ten million.
Now that’s pressure!
Thanks Bob
The Canadian national inferiority complex kicks into high gear this week as pundits and fans across the country assess the field for this week’s RBC Canadian Open and ask themselves, why won’t Tiger come back? Doesn’t he like Canada? Why doesn’t Phil ever come here to play? Where are all the top players? Why won’t they play in our national championship?
The answers are as varied as the players themselves. There are larger issues like the unfortunate schedule that places our Open right after “The Open” and even though RBC Canadian Open Tournament Director Bill Paul does everything possible short of personally going to Britain and kidnapping players, some just don’t want to play golf the week after a major. Bill does send his personal jet over to provide Sunday night ferry service back to Canada for the willing participants and occasional freeloaders but even that courtesy isn’t enough to entice some of the pampered class.
The argument that the players are independent contractors gets kind of tiring. The guy who cuts my grass is an independent contractor too but if he doesn’t hack my weeds on a weekly basis, he’ll be more independent and less contractor real quick. Sooner or later, hopefully sooner, the top players, and that really means Tiger, Phil and a few others, will realize that if they don’t support ALL of the tournaments on a semi-regular basis, some will vanish for lack of sponsor support. Naturally that won’t affect Tiger’s bank balance but there are 143 other players on a weekly basis who depend on those second and third tier events. And there are fans and communities and charities too who need those events for a multitude of reasons.
Anyway, the purpose of this blog is not to lament the absence of a few top players from the 2009 RBC Canadian Open. In fact, the field looks to be one of the strongest in years. Among the top ranked players who will tee it up at Glen Abbey this week are Anthony Kim, Sean O’Hair, Retief Goosen, Camilo Villegas, Trevor Immelman, Luke Donald, Bubba Watson, J.B. Holmes and Dustin Johnson. Fan favourite Fred Couples and tabloid phenom John Daly will be there as will Canadian PGA TOUR stars Mike Weir and Stephen Ames.
Sometimes in all the hoopla about which top players will or won’t be there and who has a valid reason and who doesn’t, we forget about the guys who have been loyal to the Canadian Open for a long time. A few years back I was standing near the 10th tee at The Abbey and noticed Billy Mayfair sitting under a tree near by. Nobody was near him and he wasn’t due to tee off for another thirty minutes or so so I moseyed on over and struck up a conversation. Turns out Billy just wanted to get away from the practice area and all the ruckus and enjoy a bit of the tournament.
We spoke for about ten minutes and among other things he told me that he really enjoyed coming to Canada and loved the atmosphere of our national championship. He asked me as many questions as I asked him. Most of his were about Canada, our history and places to visit. For PGA Tour players, those are pretty unusual questions. Typically, if they do ask you any questions and it is rare, the questions are, “do you know any good restaurants nearby?” or “is there any nightlife around here?” (That last question usually gets phrased a bit more graphically too.)
After my conversation with Mayfair I did some checking. Billy first came to the Canadian Open back in 1989, tied for 70th spot and earned $1,773. Following up for 2009, the record shows that Mayfair will play his 15th Canadian Open this year. Billy is one of the nicest guys on Tour and has compiled a solid record over his career, yet rarely gets mentioned when the field is released for any event.
Likewise a few others who have been staunch supporters of the Canadian Open over the past 20 to 25 years. How about Billy Andrade, 1998 Bell Canadian Open champion, who began his pro career in 1987 and this year will be making his 18th trip north of the border for our Open. Or 2010 American Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin who will be making this year’s Open his 19th in the past 25 years.
Mark Calcavecchia used the 2005 Bell Canadian Open at Shaugnessey GC in Vancouver to kick-start a career that had been on the skids for a few seasons. His win there marked just one of twenty appearances that Calc has made in the Canadian Open over a 28 year career. He’ll be at Glen Abbey this year too in spite of four rounds on the grueling Turnberry course last week.
As far as I can tell though, the longest streak at the Open belongs to 2003 Champion Bob Tway who will play his 24th this year. Bob first came to the Canadian Open in 1985 and has played every year since except 1987. What happended in 87 Bob? His streak of 22 consecutive Opens including this year is incredible and perhaps now even more so since Tway became eligible for the Champions Tour this past spring, yet still wants to play a full scedule on the regular Tour.
Apart from an exciting playoff win over Brad Faxon in 2003 at Hamilton, Tway’s Canadian Open record is solid but unspectacular. Therefore, outside of the past champion mention, he doesn’t get a lot of press and isn’t one of the marquee players that everyone talks about. Bob’s a quiet guy from Oklahoma with a wife and two kids. He has eight career victories including one major. (1986 PGA Championship where he chipped in from the front bunker to skewer Greg Norman one more time). Recently his greater claim to fame has come from caddying for his son Kevin as he begins his golf career.
All in all, Bob Tway is a pretty regular guy who just happens to be a strong supporter of the Canadian Open. For that, I think he, along with Billy Andrade, Billy Mayfair, Corey Pavin, Mark Calcavecchia and probably some others I’ve missed, deserve special recognition. If you get out to Glen Abbey this week, let them know that we appreciate them. For that matter, let all the players know that we appreciate them. They deserve it.
Peter Mumford is the Editor and Publisher of Fairways Magazine in Toronto. Fairways is intended for avid golfers and this blog site is an extension of that same philosophy - we don't dumb it down for the uninformed!