PGA Tour: The Play-Offs - Expect the Rich to get Richer: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).We said last week that careers were on the line at Greensboro but, in fact, not much changed.

~Those in the FedEx Top 125 points list stayed there, made certain of their place in the Play-Offs and their "playing privileges" for the 2013/2014 season. That includes close shaves from Crane and Appleby.

~And only David Toms secured his full exemption for 2013/2014 on the back of his final round 62 - it appeared his circuit was dead but Major Toms woke up in the nick of time. Having said that, he has a spare capsule, two actually, in the shape of Career Money Exemptions, the good Major being 7th on the all-time money list.

2).No doubt George O'Grady was hot on the heels of Europeans who have cards secured for next year but failed to qualify for the Play-Offs, such as Colsaerts, Hanson and Harrington, to "persuade" them to play this week in Gleneagles and add lustre to a disappointing field, right? Wrong, but at least Padraig is signed up for Celtic Manor the following week as is Ross Fisher plus several PGA Tour "non-members" who might have the option of competing in next week's first "web.com Tour Finals".
What?!?!? Up to 150 golfers will compete in this four tournament series with the Top 25 money winners earning a PGA Tour card for 2013/2014.

3).So, before we look ahead to the Play-Offs and this week's Barclays event in New Jersey, let's look a week further forward to those web.com Tour Finals and who will be contesting them. In simple terms it will be:

a).Players ranked 126 - 200 in FedEx points for the 2013 season. This will include Europeans Owen, Karlsson, Norlander, Fisher (who is eligible but appears not to be playing), Russell Knox and Paul Casey (Paul has been outspoken on behalf of the European Tour this past week so why isn't he playing in Scotland or Wales?).
And may include familiar names who also possess an alternative "career money" exemption avenue: Chad Campbell and Allenby. And many more who don't, including Bud Cauley, Ricky Barnes, Immelman, Ishikawa, Jonathan Byrd (he has some Medical Exemption starts remaining), O'Hair and DiMarco.

b).Those ranked 1 - 75 on the web.com money list following this week's "Cox Classic" tournament in Omaha. Familiar names qualifying here include Cejka, Richard S.Johnson, Will MacKenzie and possibly - depending on this week's results - Matthew Goggin and Patrick Cantlay. The Top 25 after this weekend will already have earned their cards but the exact status of all but #1 will be determined by the Tour Finals money-list.

c).Tour non-members achieving specific money or notional FedEx points levels this season. Too much detail to go thru every one, but most Europeans who competed in the WGC's and Majors this year would come in to this category tho' it remains to be seen who'll take advantage. Marcel Siem perhaps, but most of them such as Gonzo, Molinari, Lowry etc are signed up for Celtic Manor and they can't be in two places at once.  

4).I'm thinking that, when the web.com Tour Finals get underway, they might be even more compelling than the FedEx Play-Offs, but these Play-Off tournaments have produced some great golf over the past six years and doubtless we'll enjoy more of the same.
Whether there'll be any sort of "crescendo" building up to the Tour Championship I somewhat doubt, partly because the Play-Off points scoring system which is simple enough seems to defeat the efforts of the berks at the Networks to explain them. You know the drill by now;
Top 125 play this week at The Barclays.
Remaining Top 100 qualify next week for the DeutscheBank.
Then the Top 70 earn a tee-time two weeks' later at the BMW.
And the Top 30 sitting when the music stops go to East Lake for a bottle of Coke and the Tour Championship.

5).pgatour.com, who have been wrong before, project that it will be necessary for this week's field to have amassed FedEx 550 points including their Barclays result so this places the following luminaries on the "bubble":
Van Pelt, Ogilvy, Twit Overton, Kaymer, Villegas, Romero, Pettersson, Badds, Apples and Ben Crane.

6).When we talk about the rich getting richer, let's review the Top Ten leading beneficiaries of the FedEx bonus pool (excluding actual tournament prize-money) so far:
$22.275M: Woods
$13.190M: Furyk
$11.258M: Snedeker
$11.020M: Vijay Singh (not qualified this year)
$10.566M: Bill Haas
$7.230M: Mickelson
$6.430M: Stricker (qualified but resting his dodgy hamstring this week)
$4.960M: Luke Donald
$4.315M: Kuchar
$3.745M: Villegas
Rory has hoovered up $3.14M, Sergio $3.13M and Justin Rose $2.4M with other Euros filling their boots in lesser quantities.

7).We remember Tiger's witticism of the last decade (still waiting for this decade's) wondering in 2009 when The Barclays was last played at Liberty National Golf Course whether player consultant Tom Kite had designed the greens before or after he had his eyes fixed.
Well, 15 of the 18 holes have reportedly been changed in some way, 12 greens redone, 12 tees altered and some fairways and bunkering tweaked. If not a brand new course, it should certainly feel it, pretty much the only constant being the stunning views of Lady Liberty, New York Harbour and the Manhattan skyline. The morons at CBS seemed to spend rather too long focussing on cruise ships steaming by the course, so hopefully viewers will enjoy a revamped TV production as well as a playable course.

8).Because the lay-out is essential new, and there are very few Tour Pros with local knowledge, picking a winner this week will be something of a lottery. The Europeans tend to say how much they want to be part of the FedEx bonanza but the tournaments were pretty much an all American affair (except for 2008 when Vijay and Camilo won all four between them) until Justin Rose won the BMW two years ago and then Rory dominated last year.
I'd expect the same this year and imagine T.Woods will be motivated to add tournament wins and another $10mil to any pre-nup plan he might be conjuring up (nah!) with Miss Vonn.

9).Far, far away, in the great Pacific North-West, the "Boeing Classic" will be offering Colin Montgomerie to break his duck on the Champions Tour. Much to his surprise, no doubt, he's only mustered up two Top Tens (a 7th and a 9th place) in five starts so far, not cracking the Top 20 otherwise.
Last week was the 1,000th event on the Champions Tour - the very first winner was the most appropriately named Don January, "Bones" before Phil had even heard of Jim Mackay. Nothing quite so fitting last Sunday as Bart Bryant, brother of the Tour's Doctor Dirt, held on for a win.

10).Trivia: I mentioned last week that a highly influential force in American football (OK, soccer) died recently, a cousin of a Major Championship winner.
Who? Choose either the footballer/administrator or the golfer.
For better or for worse I saw both play!

Westwood was always prone to saying it how it is on 606, I'm not surprised he's found himself in trouble on twitter, can't say I blame him having a go, it must get you down after a while, but when you're in an elevated position you have to be careful. The only way to answer the trolls us to do it on course, I sincerely hope he does. If not, well we would all swap places with him tomorrow!

The Barclays Boys tee off at 7.00 a.m. this morning, with yesterday's "afternoon wave" destined for anywhere from about 27 holes to 36 holes.
(Ian Poulter attended the Barclay School in Stevenage - wonder why he hasn't spun that in to a sponsorship gig?)

gw,
I thought lw1 was great on 606, dismissive of idiots but very supportive of those he saw as good guys, Karlsson, Simon Khan, Duval I remember. Hasn't helped his putting though.
Meanwhile, Gary Boyd inside the Gleneagles cut-line - hope he stays there.


We caught that Shane O'Donoghue on the Golf Channel's Irish Open coverage - he seemed so stuck on himself that he didn't know what he didn't know. Awful to listen to as I mentioned at the time.
But Rory IS due. Wozza going well this week, too.

Yeah I thought he wad great on 606 too kwin, shame he didn't stick around.
Yeah Gary needs a result, but just making the cut isn't enough. Still baffled by his schedule.

Don't think I have ever seen this but after 7 holes Bubba Watson's average distance to the pin is 8"7 that is some golfing.

Sounds like my lag putting, benson!

Poulter trying to emulate Rory with back-to-back double bogeys. But without Rory's eagle and plentiful birdies, so far at least.
Otherwise, scoring early this morning looks lower than early yesterday, before the rain.

IJP Designs will miss the weekend exposure if IJP doesn't get his sh1t together - his record in Play Offs has been beyond abysmal and his seven over par for his past five holes only serves to remind us of that.

Reading his Twitterage it sometimes seems as tho' he feels he only has to turn up at tournaments in time for a quick gaze at the course and then tee it up. Doesn't usually work that way, Ian.

Round 2 tee-times already scheduled for a later start (10.20 a.m.) than originally planned.
Poulter and Davis off at 10.31 a.m., and they'll both need to do better than for Round 1.
Lukey in with a nice (4 under par 67) round, but Laird has made a mess of his past few holes and will need a mid-sixties later to assure himself of a Saturday tee-time.

By the end of Round 2 (Saturday mid-morning?) we'll know some of those who'll have no further Play-Off interest. Ernie Els among those on the precipice.

On Sky last night there where going on about needing to finish in the top 100 to play next week, they seemed to imply it was top 100 of this event? Is there a cut this week? Or is it just top 100 on the rejigged UPS cup?

beninho

Top 70 and ties for this week and the deutche bank and no cut at the BMW and the tour champ.

It is top 100 in the fedex rankings after this week, not top 100 from the barclays.

Fowler is 'En fuego'

AlciG wrote:Fowler is 'En fuego'

And I jinxed him... a bogey

AlciG wrote:Fowler is 'En fuego'

I wish he was literally on fire.

I wish Ben Crane was on fire - but second best is:
He's withdrawn (after a Round 1 67,); don't know why, perhaps did something unnatural arsing around to his latest moronic video.
Lucas Glover also going home early.

Russell Knox with a nice tournament going in the web.commer in Omaha - five under (-9 for the tournament) with 3 x Round 2 holes to play.

Perhaps God told him not to play Kwini.

Don't look now s_r, but Webb Simpson is up front; prepare for a lecture on faith.

Anyone know what David Lynn has been smoking the past year or so? He's had a really good year so far, and know nudging the Barclays leaders.

Bo Van Pelt looks like being the first big name (of the recent past anyway) to exit these Play-Offs - terrible form all year, so no big surprise.

Edit: Van Pelt survives, but like so many others will have to play well in Boston to give himself any chance at the big FedEx bucks.

Stenson too, a man in pretty rude form right now.

Martin Laird in with a 16 foot putt on his last hole which sneaks him inside the cut-line.
Davis misses a slightly longer effort so he can fly back to Florida with Poulter knowing they'll both need a very good effort at the DeutscheBank to advance to Round 3 in Chicago.

Decent 69 from GB kwini, that's more like it. Needs a good weekend for a good finish to get the confidence going again.

Saw that! Good for him. But as you say, funny old schedule he fixes himself up with.
Quite a good leaderboard, and even Tom Lewis has joined the party.

Let's see if your mate Justin can get his year back in to gear - he'll be off in fifteen minutes.

Yep I'll be flcking between the big match (!) and the golf.

1-0 at half-time!

Looking precarious though!

Two birds already for ex-606'ers midgetmac and lw1. Lee inside the cut-line of even par but it's starting to creep toward -1, which would send Laird home. Won't know for certain until breakfast time tomorrow.

kwinigolfer wrote:...And only David Toms secured his full exemption for 2013/2014 on the back of his final round 62 - it appeared his circuit was dead but Major Toms woke up in the nick of time. Having said that, he has a spare capsule, two actually, in the shape of Career Money Exemptions, the good Major being 7th on the all-time money list...

Excellent as usual Kwini and the above was particularly brilliant!

Whatever the criticisms of Woods' game no one makes chipping look easier. Mickelson might do it with more panache (poseur) but Woods gets up and down more regularly and with far less fuss (apart from the famous chip-ins which deserve the fanfare) than anyone I've ever seen.

And no-one makes it look more unnatural, Hibbz, than Westwood, but he must have taken some of 606 comments to heart as he's climbing the leaderboard - good to see.


Agreed about Woods - but he lost it for a while after his trip to Mississippi. But back with a vengeance.

Back to the putting drawing board for Lee: looks like three putts from 10 feet for bogey - EDIT: Shot Link lied: PAR!
But another bird for Rors.
PS: Charlie Hoffman playing with Rory - how do you like his haircut??!!

This course is looking like a pitch and putt for those playing well - Tiger etc.

pedro,
What makes me puke is the fact they have to be judgmental on who the public will be more interested in - always seems to be an order of first among equals, and American golfers at the head of their queue, usually the godly ones if not Tiger or Phil.

Why is it Woods is always first on the leaderboard even if he has completed fewer holes than others with the same score. Makes me puke.

Pedro - Really simple. It's all about the ratings ... hard core golf fans will generally watch regardless, the marginal fan (generally more interested in the stars like Tiger) will tune in and keep tuned if he's on (or Phil, or Rory, but Tiger trumps all).

So, really not a "judgement" call, but one of commerce.

Until enough people vote by changing the channel, don't look for it to change.

But what gets me are those that are really bothered by it and don't change the channel. Like banging your head against the wall so it feels good when you stop?

I think you're cracking up, Shotrock! Stop banging your head!!

Fortunately, that's the advantage of following some of this stuff on-line when the TV guys go way ott, some of it quite unwatchable, or at least unlistenable to!

Interesting to see Morgan Hoffmann playing well; he's been on a good run of form recently and is probably the only New Joysey born and bred golfer in the field. Whatever he does this week, he's surely one to watch.

After saying how poorly Europeans typically do in the Play-Offs, only three (Poulter, Davis and Lingmerth) are sure to miss the cut, with five in the top 14. Hopefully two or three of them will make a proper run at the lead.

7.30 a.m. start Saturday morning, would expect Round 3 to be start off both nines beginning about 11.00 a.m.

PGA Tour officials busily trying to find a firm mattress for Tiger.

Poulter tweeting his strategy for Saturday: Get up early and watch Arsenal.

And so it goes.

Kwin -

The crawl on ESPN was "Tiger and Rory 4 behind", they did not lead with the leader. Gasp.

I'll type slowly ... r a t i n g s (but I know you know that ...)

Unwatchable? Yet somehow you watch it? Changer broken?

You'll have better luck yelling at a billboard to change its message!

Does anyone really watch golf for the also rans?

and by also rans I mean those not called; Tiger woods, Rory Mcilroy, phil Mickelson or the name of your few favorite players (maybe based on nationality or similar)

Does anyone really watch golf just to see how Tiger plays every week rather than to see who wins??

Unfortunately it's not so easy to change channel as the same network usually delivers the feed for everyone.

I just think they risk dilluting their product by focusing so blindly on Tiger et al. And then it's rather disrespectful to the other players - at least when it comes to displaying their name on the leaderboard.

I'm surprised Mac is not offended?

I'm no huge Tiger fan but I must admit I'm more likely to watch a tournament if he's playing. Same goes for Rory. The coverage is obviously lop sided but could be argued they're more likely to deliver more exciting golf than others?

It's not just Tiger though with the way the scores are shown, the networks create their own pecking order of whom they reckon the viewers are interested in, often to show a leaderboard artificially populated by Americans, which they then comment on.

Watch far less golf than I used to because of the deterioration of the coverage. Some of it unwatchable, except perhaps for Shotrock and Mac.

Should be a gorgeous Saturday morning for golf - the players concluding Round 2 starting in half an hour. Cool, mid-60's, to start with and a bit breezier than it might be later when temps will reach 80F under a cloudless sky. Let's hope anyway.

Lots to play for as Round 2 winds down, especially for McDowell and Carl Pettersson who sit on the cut-line, and even Westwood who's only two shots safer.

Wonder how Tiger's mattress was last night? He can blame his sleeping arrangements as much as he likes but he was clutching his back at Oak Hill also so stiffness for Tiger is nothing new. Perhaps he'll give Boston a miss?

Hope goldwolf is watching Gary Boyd's steady ascent of the Gleneagles leaderboard?
Ross Fisher off to a good start too.

Well done, Rory. In with a 65 and into the Top Ten.
Westwood going from bunker to bunker, (sick comment deleted . . . . . . )

And how about Laura Davies -- tied for fifth, 2 shots behind the leaders in Canada.  Several solheim players right up there too.  Would be great to have an individual victory right after the team victory.  

Quite Plunky!
15 Solheim contestants in the Top 24, although Stacy Lewis abandoned ship after Round One. Boeljon, Heroine of 2011, up there also.

Think my lad is at LibNat today, are you going this week?

Job done by Lee Westwood this morning, well inside the cut-line with his 68 and not a bad recovery after his dismal +5 start on Thursday.
But McDowell in trouble - needs a birdie at his final hole or he'll be waiting tables at None Blue this weekend.

McDowell going home.
Looks like Justin Rose's late bogey will be all that keeps McIlroy and Woods apart when the Round 3 tee-times are published.
Kuchar with a two-shot lead; he always seems to be a good front-runner so imagine someone will have to shoot low today and tomorrow to beat him.
Course should start drying out so scoring might not be so low.
Dustin Johnson, McDowell and Snedeker the big names closing their Barclays account.

kwinigolfer wrote:Quite Plunky!
15 Solheim contestants in the Top 24, although Stacy Lewis abandoned ship after Round One. Boeljon, Heroine of 2011, up there also.

Think my lad is at LibNat today, are you going this week?

Nope, not this time ! We have non-golfing family due to arrive on Monday and stay for 2 weeks, so this weekend is our last chance to get out and play for a while. We moved to a new office in NY and are on the 42nd floor -- I could see the Statue of Liberty from one of our windows yesterday but couldn't really make out the golf course. Then when I saw the skyline on TV, I couldn't find my building.

I read on the PgaT website that it's the most expensive course ever built, at 250 M$. Sure, the views are nice. And if you have the money.

Manhattan is like that!

Round 3 start time is 10.43 a.m. off the 1st tee and the 10th. No good for the paying punter who likes the chance to walk 36 holes on the weekend, but sure TV will love it.

Some good groups nevertheless and one of the best, away from the throngs, is Westwood joining Dufner and Ogilvy.
Think if I was there I'd follow Sergio, King Charl and Freddie Jac - resplendent hopefully in his plus twos (which doubtless be referred to as "knickers") by American TV.
Rory with David Lynn, which should keep them both amused, perhaps Wozza will be following them as she has her weekend off.

"Unwatchable ... except perhaps for Shotrock and Mac ..."

And, oh, the vast majority of the golf-viewing public (where the money flows from)!

Kwin - Did listen to much of the PGA Championship dockside at 4th lake and on XM radio. Not bad really.

Boy, I bet Tiger wished he had some of this form there.

Sr,
Tiger had a ridiculous game plan going in to Oak Hill, almost as if he was determined to play his way, regardless of the circumstances. Also one can't help but feel that Haney is right with his assessment of Tiger's preparation for courses on which he's played seldom or not at all.

Still find it incredible that he has such a great record at Firestone.

Jordan Spieth off to another good start - Couples will find it hard to ignore his Pres Cup claims.

Some BIG numbers being posted in the early going . . . . . not quite sure what that's all about.

pedro,
Given that they've reclaimed a giant toxic landfill and turned it in to a decent golfcourse, that's probably not a bad investment. Imagine the stuff that was in there . . . . . . including Jimmy Hoffa.

Meanwhile in Nebraska, the web.com Tour final event, before the Finals that is, 25 PGA Tour cards will be dished out tomorrow night. There's a good chance that Daniel Chopra will earn one as he's inside the Top 25 right now and enjoying a good tournament.
Most likely that Russell Knox (who's already qualified via his Tour record) and Richard S.Johnson will be heading to Indiana for the exquisitely named web.com Tour Finals.

kwinigolfer wrote:pedro,
Given that they've reclaimed a giant toxic landfill and turned it in to a decent golfcourse, that's probably not a bad investment. Imagine the stuff that was in there . . . . . . including Jimmy Hoffa....