PGA Tour Won’t Do The Right Thing For Will McGirt

The PGA Tour can be a really stuffy, rules-loving organization that sometimes simply can’t get out of its own way.

Today we present the story of Will McGirt, a long-time journeyman golfer who got his first-ever victory on the PGA Tour last year at Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial shindig.

It was a breakthrough deal for Will, a huge win, you’re instantly a buddy of The Golden Bear.

McGirt went on to have a career season.  He won more than $3.6 million and finished 24th in the FedEx Cup and he’s ranked 42nd in the world, which has caused his dilemma that plays out this week.

You see, McGirt has been a big supporter of this week’s “other” event in the world, the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Ms.  It’s really small potatoes when you consider the WGC HSBC Champions event is being staged on the other side of the world in Shanghai.

This one’s pretty simple.  McGirt wants to continue to support the Sanderson Farms event, he would rather skip the tedious travel to China in favor of teeing it up in Jackson.  Hey, he’s a kid from Lumberton, N.C. and he’d totally have Jeff Foxworthy’s seal of approval for this decision.

There’s only one problem.  The stuffy old PGA Tour has this asinine by-law that says a player qualified for a WGC event cannot skip said WGC event to participate in a little peon tournament like the Sanderson Farms.

Seriously?

Well, we pose the proposition that there are probably a billion Chinese who do not know who the heck Will McGirt is.  On the same note, there are probably a lot of folks in Jackson, Ms., who do.

McGirt finished tied for second there last year at the Country Club of Jackson.

Here’s McGirt’s stance on this situation:

“I want to support a tournament I love and a cause I believe in so that’s what I’m going to do.”

The beneficiary of the Sanderson event is the Blair E. Batson Hospital for Children.

And the Tour won’t make an exception for this?

HSBC is a world-wide banking behemoth so we can understand McGirt’s quadry.  He knows the good folks at Sanderson Farms.

McGirt makes a great case when he explains his stance on this:

“You spend 12 hours in a metal tube flying halfway around the world and then two or three days getting over that.  Then you fly back 12 hours and it takes your body a week or so to get other that.  I just don’t want to do it, no interest at all in doing it.  I’d rather support Steve (Jent) and Joe (Sanderson) and the hospital there.”

Since Czar Finchen, aka Commissioner Tim, won’t help McGirt on this, McGirt will show up and play in the Pro-Am event prior to the tournament this week in Jackson.  Nothing they can do about that.

It really wouldn’t take much effort for Finchem to lobby on behalf of McGirt and get the folks at HSBC to say, ‘hey, it’s fine with us, we never heard of McGirt!'”

Yes, there would be no hurt feelings in Shanghai if they simply let Will go play in Mississippi.  A hall pass from Shanghai seems like no big deal.

When you consider that Chris Kirk at No. 74 is the highest-ranked player at Sanderson Farms, well, it seems only right that King Finchem would help out one of his tour’s “lesser” events.  But no, by-laws are by-laws.  Keep in mind Finchem was a lawyer before he got the world’s best gig as Commish of golfers.

McGirt would be a huge name in Jackson.  In China, he’s a fish out of water and they won’t miss him anyway.

This one has us totally baffled.

But sometimes the Tour is just too big for its own britches and this is one of those times.

Very sad.