Golf Thread - September

[CanadianChris 0]

This month's events:

 

FEDEX CUP TOURNAMENTS

September 6-9: BMW Championship, Cog Hill G&CC, Lemont, IL (Trevor Immelman)

September 13-16: The TOUR Championship, East Lake GC, Atlanta, GA (Adam Scott)

 

FALL FINISH TOURNAMENTS

September 20-23: Turning Stone Resort Championship, Atunyote GC, Verona, NY (inaugural event)

September 27-30: Viking Classic, Annandale GC, Madison, MS (D.J. Trahan)

 

September 27-30: The Presidents Cup, Royal Montreal GC, Montreal, QC (USA)

 

I'm getting pretty tired of the whole musical event titles thing. I had to look up that the BMW is the former Western Open (where Trevor Immelman will have been the defending champ for 14 months), and that the Viking Classic used to be the Southern Farm Bureau Classic. Also, John Rollins will not be defending his title at Turning Stone, even though he won there last year, because the course hosted the final B.C. Open last year and not the Turning Stone Championship.

 

Also, Lefty confirmed that he'll be skipping the BMW Championship this week. Something is going to have to be done about this next year, I just don't know what. The most obvious thing to do -- scheduling a week off in between the Deutsche Bank and the BMW -- is problematic because the TV contracts mandate a tournament every week during the golf season, and who's going to watch a Valero Texas Open the week before and after two high-profile tournaments? Maybe instituting a points penalty for each playoff tournament missed is the answer. I'd love for them to just call the whole thing off, but that's definitely not in the cards either.

 

Tiger's return to Royal Montreal -- the site of his first, and for a long time only, missed cut as a pro -- should be fun to watch.

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

It's pretty sad that I am going to be more interested in the Fall Finish tournaments than I am in the FedEx Cup.

 

I agree that a points penalty of some sort needs to be instituted to players who skip playoff events. Tiger and Phil have set a really bad example by skipping out on playoff events and both did when they were in the POINTS LEAD. This could really set up badly next year with top golfers blowing off a few events and then some of the players who are near the bottom of the points standings in each of the playoff events just saying "screw it" and not even showing up thereby rendering the playoffs as a joke. After all, a player who starts the playoffs in 144th place has nearly no chance of winning the thing since they have to put together nearly three consecutive top three finishes to even make it to Atlanta. I also shudder to think of what next year is going to look like for the FedEx Cup without adjustments because with the Ryder Cup being positioned immediately after the FedEx Cup guys are going to have to play 5 weeks in a row and I don't see that happening. Either one or more playoff events are going to take a hit because of this OR players are going to skip out on the Ryder Cup which wouldn't be very popular. Maybe they should just institute a "break" in between the four playoff events but as CanadienChris pointed out above that's problematic for the Tour's TV schedule.

 

I also think the PGA Tour needs to start doing a "PGA TV" thing on their website like the MLB. Some of us don't get the golf channel and as a result I'm going to miss out on all of the tournaments after the TOUR Championship. That hardly seems right.

 

I think the International have a good chance to win the Presidents Cup as well. Their team is stacked in terms of world rankings versus the United States team but the U.S. always seems to come alive in the Presidents Cup as of late and then go dormant in the Ryder Cup.

 

Also, did anyone miss the International tournament as much as I did this year? I hated the fact that the tournament shut down because I loved the stableford scoring system. Some tournament needs to adopt that because it was fun to watch and was just a taste of something different during the regular season.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Be it known that I bet on Tiger Woods this week (Learn more here, if interested), and am actually pulling for him, something which hasn't happened, to the best of my memory, since the 2000 Mercedes Invitational.

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

Steve Stricker is really impressing me in these playoffs. After he won the first playoff event it was a nice feel good moment but I had no idea he would be contending over the next several weeks. An anonymous PGA Tour player in a FedEx Cup preview told Sports Illustrated that he thought Stricker was the dark horse to win the event and that might come to fruition at the end of today because if Stricker wins the only way Tiger & Phil have a reasonable chance at catching him is to win the TOUR Championship next week in Atlanta.

[CanadianChris 0]

I've been waiting for Stricker to come on like this for years. One of the local golf pros here went to school with Stricker at Illinois, and talks him up every chance he gets.

 

This is fun to watch. Everyone's making birdies from everywhere.

[Guest dbranagan]

The last week of this mess. Yay.

 

Let's get to the race that really matters and isn't a convoluted piece of dog shit. Top 125. And the Top 25 for the Nationwide.

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

The last week of this mess. Yay.

 

Let's get to the race that really matters and isn't a convoluted piece of dog shit. Top 125. And the Top 25 for the Nationwide.

 

I agree with you for the most part. The playoffs might end on a high note next week if Phil or Stricker wins and Tiger doesn't place second but with players skipping events this playoffs quickly turned stupid. I wonder how many years this playoff idea will stay around.

[Guest dbranagan]

If Tim Finchem has any sense, zero.

 

Playoffs will never ever work for golf. Unless there's match play. And if Tiger loses early, uh oh spaghetti-o's.

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

If Tim Finchem has any sense, zero.

 

Playoffs will never ever work for golf. Unless there's match play. And if Tiger loses early, uh oh spaghetti-o's.

 

Spot on. Any attempt to have a real playoff format won't work because the Tour fears the reprecussions if Tiger has a bad round and doesn't make the small cut to the next round. Hell, you could start with 30 players and play 3 tournaments for a final tournament of 10 guys but that's way too small of a field for the TV execs probably. They had to the 144 player deal to get the rank and file Tour guys to sign onto it but lets get serious...who REALLY thought anyone outside of the top 30 when this thing started had a chance? Also THREE players of the five who still have a chance to win the FedEx Cup didn't play all the events (Woods, Mickelson, and Choi). That's why I'm rooting for Stricker this weekend in Atlanta.

 

Tim Finchem has no sense which is hurting the Tour. Players are pissed he's catering everything to Tiger and Phil and then Tiger and Phil skip out on events they said they'd play in. I lost respect for Finchem when I got into golf in the mid-1990s and he dissed Greg Norman for trying to put together a world golf championship series and then several years later "came up" with the idea for what we now have of the World Golf Championships. Yea, like no one noticed he STOLE that idea. That pissed me off to no end as I will always be a Norman fan (its so sad that he had such a bad time closing out majors but that's another argument for another day) and it only made me more enraged when Finchem tried to kiss up to Norman @ the World Golf HOF induction. Norman should've just punched him in the mouth.

[Vern Gagne 0]

This is the last tournament of the year?

 

I know the President's Cup is at the end of September, but what about the rest of September and October?

[CanadianChris 0]

Fall Finish.

[Vern Gagne 0]

What is that?

 

Tiger is going to win again. It's gotten to point that if Tiger doesn't win, Lefty Hefty better win or hardly anyone cares.

[CanadianChris 0]

It's the final seven tournaments on the schedule. The first two are in my opening post. It's meant to get viewers to tune in to see who can keep their card for next year.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

This is, in my opinion, where the most tinkering needs to be done.

 

I realise the odds of it are astronomical, but someone playing in the playoffs this week (as well as last) might not retain their card based on how the Fall Finish plays out. I'd like to see everyone play for points, or cash, all season. Should anyone in the playoffs be allowed to play the FF events? (I say yes, but that's not what I'm getting at) Should everyone not in the top 144 have their accumulated points reset as well for the Fall Finish?

 

As I've said before, I still really like the idea behind the playoffs, and I still think a little tinkering after seeing it play out is what's going to make it work.

[CanadianChris 0]

I realise the odds of it are astronomical, but someone playing in the playoffs this week (as well as last) might not retain their card based on how the Fall Finish plays out.

No, the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings after the TOUR Championship automatically retain their cards for next year (as well as automatically qualifying for The Masters).

[CanadianChris 0]

And Zach Johnson set new course and tournament records with a 60. He just missed a bunker shot on 18 for 59.

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

Maybe my judgment is cloudy because I haven't watched the TOUR Championship in two years but does East Lake always surrender these low scores? If not, what is to blame? For a course whose greens were said to be so off kilter it would ruin the FedEx Cup it sure isn't playing too tough.

[CanadianChris 0]

They watered the greens quite a bit to get the grass to grow this week, and then they got a ton of rain the first two days of the tournament. The greens are so soft that no one has any fear of firing at the flag. The greens are still fairly bumpy, as they've been showing on TV on a lot of the putts, but guys are getting it so close that it doesn't matter.