Connect with us

News

Will PGA Tour change new MDF policy?

Published

on

The PGA Tour rolled out a new and quite controversial cut policy for the 2008 golf season. It is known by the acronym, MDF, which stands for made the cut, did not finish.

It seems that no one, with the exception of possibly the Tour higher echelon types and television executives, actually liked this policy. The new policy makes it possible for a player to make the cut but not be able to play on Saturday and Sunday. In fact at the Sony Open 87 players actually made the official cut, but 17 were not allowed to play the weekend. This is silly and when I first heard of it, I thought, the PGA Tour policy board is sure going to discuss this.

The 16 player Tour Advisory Board met this week and offered an alternative to the new, MDF policy. The board will reportedly seek that the players want to return to the traditional 36-hole cut of the top 70 and ties. This could possibly result in more than 78 players making the cut. In many instances, it will. In that case, a 54 hole cut would be placed into effect to further reduce the number to 70. At least the guy who goes low on Saturday, still has a fighting chance for Sunday.

One often wonders if the Tour works in unison with the players before rolling out these new rules. You would have to think that any player would be unhappy to get last place money for making the cut without an opportunity to move up higher for the weekend’s prize money. With the high quality field that exists week in and week out on the PGA Tour, one would also have to think that even a guy who struggled all week, grinded every round, could possibly shoot a career low that last day or two, thus allowing said player more Fed Ex Cup points and a bigger pay day. In fact, the great players on the PGA tour do this all too often. Every guy out there expects to go low.

So what was the impetus behind this new cut policy? Typically, the field at each PGA Tour event sets the cut at the top 70 scores including ties. This has been standard operating procedure since 1969 on tour. Wow. The previous policy was almost 40 years old. Part of the problem could be that there is much more parity in the field in this day and age, lots of great golf is being played, and therefore many more players are making the cut line than in the past. The cut policy was changed because of more than 70 players were making the cut, and at times upwards of 92 players were making the cut thus causing the final two rounds to be played in threesomes off both nines. This led to many rounds played lasting well past 5 hours. I am sure that increased slow play pains the tv execs and program scheduling as well.

Why not just make the cut to everyone within 10 shots of Tiger Woods after Friday’s round? Tiger doesn’t play every week, so that won’t work. What if Tiger or Phil gets MDF’ed?  Well, it could happen. According to ESPN, Golf World’s Senior Editor John Antonini makes a valid point, “Imagine the outcry if Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson make the cut on the number at the Buick Invitational but are among 18 players eliminated from playing the weekend. The ticket holders, television viewers, and most importantly, the tournament sponsors won’t be pleased.” Does the MDF policy cure slow play on tour? Did anyone watch how many practice swings JB Holmes took a few weeks ago? Ouch. I had time to leave the room and make popcorn and didn’t miss a shot. Most importantly, why not actually enforce slow play by adding penalty strokes or with monetary fines that hit the players in the pocketbook? Heck, subtract some Fed Ex points for slow play. Obviously, none of the players will like these options either, and who can blame them? Have a sudden death playoff on Friday afternoon to determine who gets in for a chance at the weekend prize. That would surely make for great television ratings. Really, the options are limitless here but everyone needs to be on board.

It will be interesting to see what comes of all this discussion. Stay tuned.
 

Your Reaction?
  • 0
  • LEGIT0
  • WOW0
  • LOL0
  • IDHT0
  • FLOP1
  • OB0
  • SHANK2

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. supplier plywood

    Nov 13, 2019 at 10:58 pm

    Nice post. I was checking continuously this blog and I’m impressed!

    Very helpful info specifically the last part
    🙂 I care for such information a lot. I was looking for this
    particular info for a long time. Thank you and good luck.

  2. Andy Brown

    Feb 20, 2008 at 11:34 am

    One thing is for sure that the Tour officials cannot use the excuse of slow play to implement this absurd cut policy. You are in no way solving the problem( that is, if slow play is high up on your list of the problem areas in golf), you are just passing the buck and at the same time making leeway for the slow goers…that does remind me of one thing I noticed during an European Tour event, Niclas Fasth is actually one of the slower players on the tour(I know irrelevant, but I did have to make that point somewhere).

    The Made the Cut Did not Finish ruling is hard to digest simply because of the fact that what it essentially says is that a player makes the cut but does not make the cut. I would rather have a simpler ruling in place which just brings down the cut line. What else can you do if you do not want more than a certain number in the field to play. It is not as if someone from that point onwards has gone on to win the tournament. At least that is what the PGA Tour stats over the last decade or so seem to suggest

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Equipment

Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter

Published

on

Tommy Fleetwood has been attached to his Odyssey White Hot Pro #3 putter for years now. However, this week at the Wells Fargo Championship, we did spot him testing a new putter that is very different, yet somewhat similar, to his current gamer.

This new putter is a TaylorMade Spider Tour X head but with a brand new neck we haven’t seen on a Spider before. A flow neck is attached to the Spider head and gives the putter about a 1/2 shaft offset. This style neck will usually increase the toe hang of the putter and we can guess it gets the putter close to his White Hot Pro #3.

Another interesting design is that lack of TaylorMade’s True Path alignment on the top of the putter. Instead of the large white center stripe, Tommy’s Spider just has a very short white site line milled into it. As with his Odyssey, Tommy seems to be a fan of soft inserts and this Spider prototype looks to have the TPU Pure Roll insert with 45° grooves for immediate topspin and less hopping and skidding.

The sole is interesting as well in that the rear weights don’t look to be interchangeable and are recessed deep into the ports. This setup could be used to push the CG forward in the putter for a more blade-like feel during the stroke, like TaylorMade did with the Spider X Proto Scottie Scheffler tested out.

Tommy’s putter is finished off with an older Super Stroke Mid Slim 2.0 grip in blue and white. The Mid Slim was designed to fit in between the Ultra Slim 1.0 and the Slim 3.0 that was a popular grip on tour.

Your Reaction?
  • 13
  • LEGIT2
  • WOW2
  • LOL1
  • IDHT0
  • FLOP0
  • OB0
  • SHANK0

Continue Reading

Equipment

Rickie Fowler’s new putter: Standard-length Odyssey Jailbird 380 in custom orange

Published

on

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article. 

…The Jailbird craze hasn’t really slowed down in 2024, either. According to Odyssey rep Joe Toulon, there are about 18-20 Jailbird putter users on the PGA TOUR.

Most recently, Akshay Bhatia won the 2024 Valero Texas Open using a broomstick-style Odyssey Jailbird 380 putter and Webb Simpson is switching into a replica of that putter at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.

Now, Fowler, who essentially started the whole Jailbird craze, is making a significant change to his putter setup.

Fowler, who has had a couple weeks off since the 2024 RBC Heritage, started experimenting with a new, custom-orange Jailbird 380 head that’s equipped with a standard 35-inch putter build, rather than his previous 38-inch counter-balanced setup.

According to Fowler, while he still likes the look and forgiveness of his Jailbird putter head, he’s looking to re-incorporate more feel into his hands during the putting stroke.

He told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Championship that the 38-inch counterbalanced setup “served its purpose” by helping him to neutralize his hands during the stroke, but now it’s time to try the standard-length putter with a standard-size SuperStroke Pistol Tour grip to help with his feel and speed control.

Although Fowler was also spotted testing standard-length mallets from L.A.B. Golf and Axis1 on Tuesday, he confirmed that the custom Odyssey Jailbird 380 is the putter he’ll use this week at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article. 

Your Reaction?
  • 29
  • LEGIT8
  • WOW3
  • LOL4
  • IDHT0
  • FLOP2
  • OB0
  • SHANK5

Continue Reading

Equipment

Details on Justin Thomas’ driver switch at the Wells Fargo Championship

Published

on

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article. 

So, with a couple of weeks off following his latest start at the 2024 RBC Heritage, Thomas sought to re-address his driver setup with the remote help of Titleist Tour fitting expert J.J. Van Wezenbeeck. About two weeks ago, Thomas and Van Wezenbeeck reviewed his recent driver stats, and discussed via phone call some possible driver and shaft combinations for him to try.

After receiving Van Wezenbeeck’s personalized shipment of product options while at home, Thomas found significant performance improvements with Titleist’s TSR2 head, equipped with Thomas’ familiar Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX shaft.

Compared to Thomas’ longtime TSR3 model, the TSR2 has a larger footprint and offers slightly higher spin and launch characteristics.

According to Van Wezenbeeck, Thomas has picked up about 2-3 mph of ball speed, to go along with 1.5 degrees higher launch and more predictable mishits.

“I’d say I’d been driving it fine, not driving it great, so I just wanted to, honestly, just test or try some stuff,” Thomas said on Tuesday in an interview with GolfWRX.com at Quail Hollow Club. “I had used that style of head a couple years ago (Thomas used a TSi2 driver around 2021); I know it’s supposed to have a little more spin. Obviously, yeah, I’d love to hit it further, but if I can get a little more spin and have my mishits be a little more consistent, I felt like obviously that’d be better for my driving…

“This (TSR2) has been great. I’ve really, really driven it well the week I’ve used it. Just hitting it more solid, I don’t know if it’s the look of it or what it is, but just a little bit more consistent with the spin numbers. Less knuckle-ball curves. It has been fast. Maybe just a little faster than what I was using. Maybe it could be something with the bigger head, maybe mentally it looks more forgiving.”

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article. 

 

Your Reaction?
  • 19
  • LEGIT1
  • WOW1
  • LOL2
  • IDHT0
  • FLOP0
  • OB0
  • SHANK8

Continue Reading

WITB

Facebook

Trending