Why Is The PGA Tour Eating Its Young?

Longtime readers here know why we're hearing strange stories of budding young talents finding themselves stifled, but for those who are perhaps outraged by Martin Kaymer losing his PGA Tour membership or Patrick Rodgers having no place to go or Brooks Koepka unlikely to make the Presidents Cup team on points or Ollie Schniederjans missing status by a shot, here's a recap of how we got here.

The PGA Tour was in danger of losing four fall events because they were following the "FedExCup playoffs" and essentially became "Fall Finish" events for those attempting to retain tour cards. If that didn't work out, the players had Q-School to look forward to as one more chance to retain a card. The system worked well while also allowing those on the outside hope of living the dream. 

Yet to save these precious four fall events and add new ones (growth! bonuses!), Tim Finchem and the PGA Tour Policy Board came up with the idea of wraparound golf, a neverending schedule putting an end to the tour's traditional, highly functional January-November calendar.

Setting aside the oversaturation issue resulting from year-round play and the peculiarity for general sports fans of starting a new season after the prior one ends, the greater issue was always the impact on "fresh blood" playing opportunities. As other sports wish they could stave off immature players not quite ready for the show (think NBA), golf is seeing players develop at a younger age like never before. The LPGA has just had its second 17-year-old superstar quandary to deal with, and like never before, male golfers are developing at younger ages and with shocking ability when coming out of the NCAA golf system.

Yet the avenue for these capable young talents has been made nearly impossible by the schedule realignment and a change in membership policies that seeks to protect existing members while making a path to the PGA Tour more difficult than ever. The only thing unfortunate about Jordan Spieth's rise was his ability to make people forget that he left school in December and through hard work, some luck (as Karen Crouse quotes him noting this week) and a great amount of skill, made it past the unfortunate barriers erected by the Tour's schedule change. 

Since Spieth's emergence, we’ve seen elite college golf talents like Peter Uihlein and Brooks Koepka try the European Tour route and while both have had moments, Koepka had a few more at just the right times. He then rode his way into some PGA Tour events by cracking the world top 50, played just well enough, and made it to the PGA Tour as a "member." But it was far from easy and a few shots here and there could have the American still playing in Europe with his buddy Uihlein. As it stands, Koepka should be on the cusp of making the Presidents Cup team on points, but because of the "membership" situation in 2013-14, is missing out on key points.

Soly at No Laying Up lays out why this happened to Koepka and understandably wonders how the PGA Tour could do this to a player it needs.

Sadly, Koepka’s case is a minor blip compared to the embarrassing situation involving Patrick Rodgers (Stanford) and the unfortunate luck of Ollie Schniederjans (Georgia Tech). Both are immensely talented young American college golf-grads whose clubs will be collecting dust the next few weeks because of the entire debacle that is Tim Finchem’s wraparound schedule.

You may recall that Phil Blackmar wrote eloquently about how the end of Q-School would close the door to emerging talents, and with the recent situations involving Rodgers and Schniederjans, the reality has become painfully obvious. I wrote last year about Rodgers and what it would take for him to get to the tour, yet even as well as the Stanford graduate has played, it's still not been enough to get him into the almighty playoffs. Membership in the club should not be a playoff priority, accomplishments should.

Steve Elling explains at GolfBlot how Rodgers "is facing a two-month break, because he’s ineligible to play in either series, despite being a Web.com member and having secured a PGA Tour card for 2015-16." Elling talked to Rodgers' agent Brad Buffoni, who is understandably amazed that his client earned a card and a spot in the playoffs of either the PGA or Web.com Tours, and yet won't be.

He finished inside the top 125 in FedEx Cup points to secure his status going forward, but since he was playing as a non-member, he remains ineligible for the FedEx Cup playoffs and the millions in bonus money on the table.

“A rule change that certainly needs review and discussion,” Buffoni said. “Hopefully, the tour will address this situation going forward, as players of Patrick’s caliber have proved in limited starts that they can compete successfully and deserve the chance to advance to the playoffs.”

Because of a new rule change instituted this year, Rodgers, 23, likewise can’t play in the Web.com Tour series, either, though he began the season on that tour, won in February and sits at No. 23 on the points list. (The top 25 at the end of this week earn PGA Tour cards for next season.)

Remember kids, the next time the tour tries to play up how young and hip they are, just keep in mind how they treat their young.

Oh but it gets more painful: Ollie Schniederjans.

Ryan Lavner lays out at GolfChannel.com in excruciating detail how the former world No. 1 amateur who finished 12th in The Open at St. Andrews, then contended at the Canadian Open and stayed in school before turning pro, missed his chance to keep playing playoff golf by a stroke. And an unlucky one at that.

Playing on sponsor exemptions this summer, he began the week with 99 non-members points and basically needed to make the cut in Greensboro to continue his season. (The equivalent of a T-66 finish would have been enough.) After an opening 71 in easy conditions, he was 4 under for his second round and safely inside the cut line when he lined up his second shot on the ninth hole, his 18th of the day. He caught a flier from the first cut, his ball sailed over the green, and he had no shot to get the ball close. The bogey capped a Friday 67 and put him on the cut line at 2 under.

Schniederjans looked safe for the weekend – and for a spot in the Finals – until Roberto Castro, another Georgia Tech alum, stuffed his final approach to a foot in the last group of the day. That single-handedly moved the cut back to 3 under, and Schniederjans was out.

But there’s more: Erik Compton withdrew prior to the start of the third round, citing a sore left ankle. Had he withdrawn before the end of the second round, the 36-hole cut would have moved back to 2 under and allowed 19 players – including Schniederjans – to move on.

“I was devastated,” he said. “I was crushed.”

Now, instead of a shot to earn his PGA Tour card through the four-event series, he has three weeks off and no status on any major tour.

It is not Finchem's fault that Ollie had bad luck or that Patrick didn't win the Wells Fargo instead of finishing second.

No, it's Finchem's fault that he could not envision so many negatives than positives from the move to wraparound golf or the consequences of ending Q-School as a direct avenue to the PGA Tour. And it's certainly his fault if more college golfers start following Spieth's bold plan of leaving school in December instead of June after the season and graduations have played out.

(This state of affairs is especially worth remembering when the tour tries to align itself with NCAA golf, even as it tries to send well-developed collegians to their feeder tours whether they need the developmental golf or not.)

The incongruity of the current schedule was largely created in the name of growing purses and keeping the playoffs on network television at the expense of common sense on many fronts. This unfortunate change will be the legacy of Finchem's term, especially if he stays on past 2016 to protect his vision of a playoff structure that remains as he envisioned: bloated, ill-timed as a sports event on the heals of majors and oddly discriminatory toward budding stars who--how dare they--choose to finish out the school year.

Which is why it is imperative that 68-year-old Finchem retire in 2016 and pave the way for his hand-chosen successor to imagine a better way, particularly at a time when the game desperately wants to nurture its young, not hold them back.