RTFM

Towards the end of this post I mentioned that the cut rule had been changed starting in 2008. The new cut run ( Rule 78 ) says basically:

The top 70 finisher plus ties make the cut. If that number exceeds 78 professional players the field for the final two rounds will be cut to 70 plus amateurs( if there are any ).

There has been a lot of hoo-hawing over the reason for this, but the plain and simple answer is TV. For most tournaments the Thursday and Friday rounds are on The Golf Channel( TGC. Which of course we have here in The Golfing Household), and since it is TGC they don't really care how long the rounds are. It is their reason for being. But on Saturday and Sunday the TV coverage switches over to the networks. They allocate 3 hours each day for coverage. If it takes longer than 3 hours the networks cut back over to TGC for the end of the days rounds( Saturday ) or the end of the tournament( Sunday ). As you can imagine, when the tournament goes long and the end switches over to TGC, the network is NOT happy. They have televised the final two rounds, but the most exciting part, who wins, happens over on TGC. The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to limit the number of players in the final rounds. Fewer players means shorter rounds, which means the network gets the final holes.

Players who make the cut, but don't make the TV cut get a MDF designation. 'Made the cut but Did not Finish'. They still get their percentage of the total pot, and their Fed-Ex points( whole 'nother post ), but they don't get to play on the weekend so they don't get to finish the tournament or get the TV exposure.

This new rule has caused quite the dust up on the PGA. Good rule or bad rule? I'm not going to jump into the fray here. But I will tell you what struck me about the whole thing.

At the Sony Open 18 players made the cut but didn't make the TV cut. According to this article these players where quite surprised at not being able to play on the weekend. In fact, according to Brandt Snedeker:

      "There were about 30 guys in the locker room, and none of us knew about this rule."

Apparently John Daly also wasn't aware:

    "I don't understand the rule. I think it's crazy. It's a stupid rule, I'm sorry,” Daly told the Golf Channel.
    “I grinded my butt off to shoot even. Then I find out on 18 you may not be playing. I just wish we   
      would have known."

But according to this all PGA players were informed:

The most bogus complaint of the weekend was that players didn't know about the new policy. That's their fault. The tour sent an e-mail when the change was approved in November. It was in the "green sheet" report they get in the mail and in lockers. It was available on "Tour Links," the players' web site. And it was attached as a cover sheet to the 2008 regulations everyone received.

And here we have a frustrated Stewart Cink:

    "Well I don't know what else we can do. We tried to notify everybody in at least three or four different
     ways, and that includes managers and spouses."

So what does this tell me? That in spite of living the high life and being on TV, professional golfers are just like me.

I am a cube dweller. I am bombarded daily with en-numberable e-mails, memos and voice messages giving me 'important' information that I absolutely MUST make my top priority. If I paid any attention at all to any of these I would never get anything done. So I don't. When I am ignorant of some vital piece of information and the person who thinks I should know it asks 'Well didn't you read the memo/e-mail/get the message?, my standard answer is 'No, it must not have reached me. Please tell me what it said'. In this way I get the information I need when I need it without spending hours trudging through a lot of extraneous information sent to me by people who judge their importance by the number of memos they put out daily. It appears that quite a few professional golfers have taken the same approach. Ignore it all. If it's really important you'll find out sooner or later.

So. To all those who insist that the information was available I say 'If you will just check your e-mail I'm sure you will find my response to the memo you sent as a follow-up to the voice message you left discussing your previous e-mail about.....well just look for the e-mail. I'm sure I sent it. Really. If you can't find it check with your wife'.

And to those golfers who were caught by surprise I say 'I understand completely gentlemen. Truly I do.'