Rickie’s Out And The Tour Doesn’t Like Two Guys At The End

Started with 125.

Now it’s down to 100 — actually, make that 98.

The PGA Tour playoffs head to Boston this week with a little curve ball — first round is Friday, this second event will finish on Labor Day Monday.

And yes, there were supposed to be 100 in the field.  Two are out.

Rickie Fowler’s still out and that comes as no surprise.  His performance at the PGA was hampered by a slight tear in an oblique muscle.  Muscle tears don’t heal overnight, or even in two or three weeks for that matter and right now you know Fowler’s concerned about being 100 percent for the Ryder Cup.  Rickie’s is No. 22 in the FedEx standings.  He’s in for next week’s BMW at Aronimink  if he’s well enough and that’s a big question mark.  Well enough.  If he can’t go in Philly, then the Tour Championship will be out, he’ll fall out of the top 30, for sure and that would give the muscle tear that much more time to heal.

Francesco Molinari, the Champion Golfer Of The Year, missed the cut at the Northern Trust and said “thanks but no thanks” to Boston this week.  He sits at lucky No. 13 in the standings and he’ll make it to East Lake, no worries.

Which brings us to East Lake, the Tour Championship and this FedEx Cup deal.

Last year you had Xander Schauffele standing there at the awards ceremony with the Tour Championship trophy and Justin Thomas with his hands on the FedEx Cup.

Seems the tour doesn’t like that.  Seems the tour thinks that confusing and doesn’t like the fact that two guys up there seems to be a distraction from their big mambo-jambo trophy and that would be the FedEx Cup.

And that is so typical of the PGA Tour.  They make a mountain out of the old proverbial mole hill.

Does anyone really care that there are two guys at the presentation?

Where’s the tragedy in that?

So now the tour and its henchmen have probably been sitting behind closed doors, eating more than their fair share of Twinkies and trying to come up with some funky new system to assure that there won’t be two guys up there at the end.

Which makes perfect sense.  The PGA Tour doesn’t have any rhyme or reason for a lot of the stuff it does.  It’s the tour’s event — their rules.

Hey, how about this?  If there are two guys, let’s do “rock-paper-scissors” and let the winner be the only guy at the presentation.

No, that’s not fair.

Just do the Tour Championship winner first, then let him step aside, then present the big one.

No, that’s too simple.

Besides, the PGA Tour hates simple.