Ponte Vedra Beach, you have a problem. The FedEx Cup play-offs, instituted by the PGA Tour to deliver a fabulous finish to the season, has become a dusty stagecoach ride to exhaustion.
It’s clear the PGA Tour’s yellow-brick road is in dire need of repairs when the reigning Tour Championship winner, Henrik Stenson, does not qualify to defend his title and expresses relief. Stenson, who posted a wire-to-wire victory over Jordan Spieth and Steve Stricker at last year’s event to pocket $11.44 million, tied for 23rd last night at the BMW Championship, won by Billy Horschel, to finish 52nd in the standings.
The top 30, minus Dustin Johnson, who is on a voluntarily leave of absence to deal with personal issues, will compete to be the top dog this week at East Lake Golf Course in Atlanta.
That group includes Morgan Hoffmann, who carded the low round of the day at Cherry Hills Country Club, a seven-under-par 63, to jump to 21st, from 68th, in the points standings.
Stenson finished 11 strokes behind Horschel, who closed with a 69 for a 72-hole total of 14 under par, two strokes better than Bubba Watson, and then described his situation as “win-win.”
He explained: “East Lake is a really great golf course, and I would really like to come back and defend and to play it again. But I finally get a bit of a break.”
To the fans who come to the play-off events expecting the greatest show on grass, Stenson offered his heartfelt apologies. “I think it’s hard for the crowds sometimes to understand what we go through with the schedule,” he said. “Again, if you want to perform at the very highest level, at your peak, you’ve got to get the rest and practice in. You can’t play every week.”
The Australian Geoff Ogilvy, who was 151st in the FedEx Cup standings on July 27th, parlayed a miler’s closing kick into a spot in the Tour Championship.
After tying for 36th at one over on Sunday to finish 25th in the points race, Ogilvy said, “To be honest with you, I’m not a 100 per cent excited about playing golf next week, but I’m really excited about what making the Tour Championship does for you.”
The players blessed/cursed to be continuing on to East Lake earn exemptions into the first three majors of 2015. “I’ll be happy when I’m not so tired,” said Ogilvy, who has played six of the last seven weeks. The unintended consequence of a bottom-heavy schedule, in which two majors, a World Golf Championships event and four play-off events are crammed into the season’s final nine weeks, is that it is going to hurt the top. Don’t be surprised if players disappear between October - when the season starts anew - and the Florida swing in March.
“You’re going to start seeing some of the best players rarely between next week and March,” Ogilvy said. He added: “No one wants to feel sorry for us, because this is an amazing thing we get to do. But if they want us to play our best in six or seven or eight of the biggest tournaments of the year in a 10-week stretch, it’s just too much.”
Rory McIlroy, the world number one, considered taking this week off. And though he showed up, his concentration went missing. The cumulative fatigue McIlroy experienced from contending in nearly every tournament he has played since the start of July caused him to make mental mistakes that cost him dearly.
McIlroy four-putted the par-3 12th hole on Saturday and again on Sunday when he closed with a 66 to finish tied for eighth at four under. “On the third putt, I’m actually thinking, OK, you don’t want to 4-putt again,” McIlroy said.
He could laugh about it because he is fourth in the points race, which means he can win the FedEx Cup, and the $10 million bonus, outright with a victory this week. McIlroy was checking his watch repeatedly as he finished his press-related obligations.
The Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning had given him tickets to the team’s season opener against the Indianapolis Colts, and McIlroy was anxious to make it in time for the opening kick-off.
The PGA Tour has a problem when its top-ranked player sees fit to praise the NFL for the sanity and sensibility of its schedule. “I think the great thing about football is how short the season is,” McIlroy said last Thursday. “So it’s always in demand. People want it. Once the Super Bowl finishes, they can’t wait for football season to start up again.”
If Horschel looked fresher than most, it could be because this was his fifth tournament since missing the cut at the British Open in mid-July. On the PGA Tour nowadays, that kind of schedule practically qualifies as a busman’s holiday.
“Hopefully this win will give me some more confidence and shoot me up there into an upper echelon player,” Horschel said. “I want to be where the Rory McIlroys are, the Tigers are, the Phil Mickelsons, the Bubba Watsons, the guys that are winning majors.”
Perhaps Horschel should be careful what he wishes for, because where the top players were on Sunday was beyond exhaustion. New York Times Service