Congrats, Jim Furyk

You might remember my previous rants on Jim Furyk, who was disqualified from the first FedEx Cup playoff tournament for oversleeping and arriving late for the Wednesday pro-am. Yesterday in Atlanta, Furyk slammed the door on that memory, winning the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup title (and $11.35 million in combined prize money) despite last month's disqualification.

That he made the (very valuable) clinching putt with his hat turned backwards, rolling it with a used putter that he bought three weeks ago for $39 at Joe & Leigh's Discount Golf Pro Shop in Easton, Mass. just makes the whole thing that much more fantastic.

 

So congratulations to Furyk for bucking up and making the best of what could have been a bad situation. With the Ryder Cup coming up this weekend in Wales, let's hope Furyk can use that same magic to carry the U.S. team.

[Boston Globe]

Another update on a previous post

You may remember my rant against the PGA after Jim Furyk was disqualified from last week's FedEx Cup playoff tournament after having arrived late to the Wednesday pro-am tournament. Now, it seems the PGA has agreed with me, tweaking the rule:

Hereafter, should a player be late for his pro-am starting time, the situation will be handled as a matter of unbecoming conduct. Such player will be required to participate in the remainder of the pro-am round and may be required to perform additional sponsor activity. A player who misses his pro-am obligation in its entirety will still be ruled ineligible for the tournament unless he has been excused in accordance with the provisions of the regulations.

Kudos to the PGA for recognizing a flawed policy and amending it. It's not often that anyone fesses up to a mistake so readily, so I stand ready to applaud those who do.

[PGATour.com]

UGH...

Another day, another tournament, another golf rant... hopefully this won't become a trend.

Three years ago, the PGA Tour introduced the FedEx Cup, its annual NASCAR-like year-end playoff for the title, with a $10 million ultimate payout for the champion. It's struggled to gain traction and popularity, and this isn't going to help:

[Jim] Furyk overslept Wednesday after his cell phone alarm clock lost power overnight, causing him to be late for his pro-am tee time in The Barclays. That left PGA Tour officials no choice but to disqualify him from the first of four FedEx Cup playoff events.

A two-time winner on tour this year, Furyk is No. 3 in the standings as the race for the $10 million prize gets under way at Ridgewood Country Club without him.

I completely disagree that PGA Tour officials had "no choice but to disqualify him". Pro-ams aren't part of the tournament, they're a promotional tool that the PGA likes, and they created this disqualification policy in 2004 because too many players were skipping the pro-ams for specious reasons. Fair enough.

But to disqualify one of the best players on tour from one of the season's most important tournaments on a technicality (made worse by the fact that Furyk didn't MISS the whole pro-am, he was simply late, by about 15 minutes, realistically missing one hole) is simply bad business.

I'm consistently baffled by people and companies who insist on hiding behind policies. Firm "policies" remove judgment from business, and they are often the last resort of the intellectually lazy. Countless times, I have found myself in long arguments with customer service reps from cable companies, cell phone companies, airlines, you name it, that dead-end into "I'm sorry, sir, but that's our policy".

Well if the policy sucks, and it isn't working, you need to change it. This policy isn't working, PGA. By disqualifying Furyk, you've sent a clear message to your fans that protecting the pro-am is more important than protecting the competitive viability of the FedEx Cup. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of your fledgling playoff system, is it guys?

[ESPN]