2011 Deutsche Bank Championship TV Schedule and Tournament Notes

THE 2011 DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIP, the second event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, is underway at TPC Boston in Norton, Massachusetts. Troy Matteson has the early clubhouse lead after a first-round 65.


Purse: $8 million
Winner’s share: $1.35 million
Defending champion: Charley Hoffman (at right)

2011 Deutsche Bank Championship Leaderboard

Field
Course
Tee times
Interviews
Tournament overview
Tournament news
Tour report
FedEx Cup guidebook


TV SCHEDULE

TV coverage of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Championship is on Golf Channel and NBC.

Fri, Sept 2
3-6 p.m. (GOLF)

Sat, Sept 3
3-6 p.m. (GOLF)

Sun, Sept 4
1-3 p.m. (GOLF) & 3-6 p.m. (NBC)

Mon, Sept 5
12-2 p.m. (GOLF) & 2-6 p.m. (NBC)

SIRIUS-XM broadcast times


−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: zzazazz, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

U.S. and UK Professors Team to Improve FedEx Cup

CAN THE FEDEX CUP be fixed? It’s a question that presumes the PGA Tour points race is flawed or lacking, which I believe is a widespread view. To be honest, I haven’t spent much time thinking about it. I accept the FedEx Cup for what it is.

I do know the PGA Tour has tinkered with the FedEx Cup structure over the years to both reward good season-long play and create an exciting playoff run that gives more than a few players a chance to take home the Cup and $10 million. How well the tour has achieved that balance is an ongoing debate.

Now I’ve learned from a recent email from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) that academia is at work on a study to ratchet up the excitement in the FedEx Cup. They write:

With controversy stirring about the shortage in excitement generated by the PGA TOUR’s FedEx Cup, two professors on opposite sides of the Atlantic have come up with a provocative recommendation about changing the format to amplify the excitement in the Tour Championship.

“A Proposal for Redesign of the FedEx Cup Playoff Series on the PGA TOUR” by Nicholas G. Hall of Ohio State University and Chris N. Potts of the University of Southampton in the UK will appear next year in our professional association’s journal.

How about that? Ohio State and University of Southampton in a true bicontinental effort for the good of golf. I’m heartened. Maybe there is hope, after all.

I was told an advance copy of the study is available, and I’ve foolishly requested one. I say foolishly because it will surely be a scholastic tome with math in it, way over my head. I may have to assign it to one of you.

−The Armchair Golfer

Players Select Jim Furyk as 2010 POY

IN A VOTE BY PGA Tour players, Jim Furyk was awarded the 2010 PGA Tour Player of the Year. Others on the ballot included Matt Kuchar, Dustin Johnson, Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson, but Furyk was the clear choice in my mind. Jim’s victory at the Tour Championship sealed the deal. He also walked off with the FedEx Cup and its $10 million bonus. His two other wins came at the Transitions Championship and Verizon Heritage.

“The year just keeps getting better is all I can say,” Furyk told reporters at the Chevron World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, California. “I’m not sure I want 2010 to end at this point.”

In a year defined by Tiger Woods’s free-fall off and on the golf course, the 40-year-old Furyk had the best season of his 18-year career to rise above other contenders for the tour’s largest pot of gold (FedEx Cup) and top award. No one—not even Furyk himself, I expect—could have seen it coming. No knock on Jim, but I wouldn’t expect him to win POY again. The Tiger vacuum created unexpected opportunities this season for Furyk and other veteran players and rising stars. What happens in 2011 is anyone’s guess.

Rickie Fowler won PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.

−The Armchair Golfer

Rain 1, Rain Gear 0

ALEX, AN ACQUAINTANCE FROM Surrey, England, sent me an email today. “Not much to write about the Ryder Cup today. Why on earth did they think Wales in October was a good idea?”

That was at 6:08 a.m. ET. I was still asleep. But when I got around to checking my email later (and also learned the Ryder Cup had been rain-delayed for several hours), Alex’s message made me wonder about Wales’ relationship with Mother Nature. Turns out from October to January, it’s a stormy one. October is the beginning of the rainiest period of the year.

(Photo: Grounds crew member / McLeod, Flickr)

Well, that’s kind of dumb. But there’s more to the story.

When Wales was awarded the Ryder Cup in 2001, there was no FedEx Cup. The matches were tentatively scheduled for mid September (like all Ryder Cups), but the FedEx Cup, now in its fourth year, moved the date of the Celtic Manor Ryder Cup back a couple of weeks.

Hello rain, goodbye U.S. rain gear.

Maybe a company named Sun Mountain shouldn’t supply rain gear. I know, I know. That was way too easy.

−The Armchair Golfer

Captain Pavin Addresses Media and Heckling Chant (Clip)

THE U.S. RYDER CUP team arrived at the Cardiff Airport in Wales on Monday. Captain Corey Pavin, as seen in the above clip, made some brief comments to a lukewarm crowd that included members of the media.

“The boys and I are getting to know each other,” Pavin said, “see who we are and what we can be. So far I like what I’ve seen.”

The U.S. Ryder Cup captain then presented his squad. A band played in the background.

Soon after things took an uncomfortable turn. An unidentified male voice began to chant “We want Jimmy.” It caught on, spreading throughout the crowd. Jimmy? No one on the American team understood what it meant, unless it was a call for FedEx Cup winner Jim Furyk to step to the microphone.

The fiery Pavin was not pleased. “I would hope you would support who we are, not who we are not. These individuals have made a choice to work, a choice to sacrifice, to put themselves on the line ... that kind of commitment and effort deserves and demands your respect.”

The captain’s stern response was followed by an awkward silence.

It’s uncertain how the episode will affect the team, but some expect Pavin to use it to further motivate his squad, already considered heavy underdogs.

Related:
Captain Pavin’s Picks: ‘My Team Is on the Floor’ (Clip)

−The Armchair Golfer

(This is an ARMCHAIR GOLF spoof.)

It Rains Money in Atlanta for Jim Furyk

2010 Tour Championship Recap
Winner: Jim Furyk
Score: 8 under, 272 (67, 65, 70, 70)
Quote: “It’s my second biggest win.”
Fact: Won $11 million with used $39 putter.
Thought: Winning Ryder Cup would cap off best year of Furyk’s career.

I DON’T TALK TO the TV a lot. Certainly not as much as I used to. And usually not with my family around (not that they care). But I was talking to the TV late this afternoon as I tuned in to the final holes of the Tour Championship. I was talking Jim Furyk through those last few holes because I didn’t want to see him blow the tournament and FedEx Cup.

I don’t understand how the the FedEx Cup points work. I let the talking heads and graphics help me keep score. What I did understand was that if Furyk won the tournament, he’d also win the FedEx Cup (and $10 million). The same was true for Luke Donald and Retief Goosen as they played the closing holes.

I decided Furyk is my guy. Nothing against the others, but I’ve always liked Furyk’s grind-it-out style.

So then he bogeys 16. Me: “Um, Jim. C’mon, buddy.” Good drive at 17 and then a weak approach shot. (I thought he hit his second shot fat long before Johnny Miller asked him what happened in the post-round interview. Was it that hard for the TV guys to see?) Another bogey. Me: “JIM!”

Eighteenth tee, long par 3. It’s raining hard, sure. Tough conditions. I get it, TV guys. (Hey, I’ve played in lots of rain and with soaking wet grips, just not for the Gross Domestic Product of a small nation.) Me: “Just get it on the green, Jimmy. C’mon now.”

Bunker.

Some work to do here. Making it interesting, eh Jim? Nothing to say now. I’m just watching. The ball comes out clean, hops, spins and checks two or so feet from the cup. I could make that one. Well, maybe. At least the soaking rain might hide the soiled spot on my pants.

Jim turns his cap around so the rain won’t drip off the bill and taps it in. He later called the putt dummy proof.

It was a nice ending. The guy who missed The Barclays because of a faulty alarm ends up winning it all. And with that used putter he picked up at Joe & Leigh’s in the Boston area, which sounds something like the House of Putters.

“It was like 65 bucks,” Furyk said, “but they sold it to me for $39, I think. I didn’t ask for that, trust me. I didn’t barter.

“It was a used putter. It’s got a nick on the back flange. It’s got a little ding in the top line. I never loft and lied it which is rare for me because I’ve always got my putters on a loft-lie machine at home, and the way the grip is on it, it might be slightly off center but that’s kind of how I like it anyway.”

Next stop for Jim and his $39 putter is Wales for this week’s Ryder Cup.

So, with three wins and the FedEx Cup, Jim Furyk is player of the year, right? I can’t make a stronger case for anyone else.

−The Armchair Golfer

Chad Campbell on DQ: ‘Just Kind of Slipped My Mind’

CHAD CAMPBELL SHOWED UP at the Deutsche Bank Championship early in the week, practiced a few days, and played in the first round on Friday, shooting 72. Then Campbell got disqualified because he forgot to register. Sigh.

PGA Tour players must register when they arrive at a tournament before play starts. PGA Tour officials realized that Campbell hadn’t registered after they went through all the forms on Friday night. Campbell is out of the tournament and FedExCup Playoffs.

What Chad said:

Q. Unfortunate, I know. Just what’s going through your head right now?
CHAD CAMPBELL: You know, just can’t believe you make a mistake like that. Obviously disappointed that I’m not getting to play today, but that’s the rules. That’s the way it goes.

Q. 83rd on the FedExCup points list. I know that makes it even tougher for you.
CHAD CAMPBELL: You know, it would have been nice to go out there and play good today and finish up the week pretty good and hopefully get into next week. But that’s the way it goes.

Q. Was there any reason that you didn’t do it? Did you get here late or was there anything --
CHAD CAMPBELL: No, not really, just kind of slipped my mind.

Q. When did you arrive this week?
CHAD CAMPBELL: Tuesday, Tuesday night.

Q. Anything remotely ever happen like this?
CHAD CAMPBELL: Yeah, a little bit worse. I went to Hawaii one time and didn’t commit. It’s starting to be a trend.

Can someone explain to me what’s going on this summer? Who will it be next week?

−The Armchair Golfer

(Source: ASAP Sports)
(Image: Keith Allison/Flickr)

2010 Deutsche Bank Championship TV Schedule and Tournament Notes

THE 2010 DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIP starts Friday at TPC Boston in Norton, Massachusetts. Matt Kuchar, last week’s winner at The Barclays, leads the FedEx Cup playoffs points race.

Purse: $7.5 million
Winner’s share: $1.35 million
Defending champion: Steve Stricker


The field
Tee times
The course
Video
Tournament news
2010 playoffs primer


2010 Deutsche Bank Championship Leaderboard


TV SCHEDULE

Thirteen hours of TV coverage are scheduled for the 2010 Deutsche Bank Championship.

Friday, Sept. 3
3-6 p.m. (GOLF)

Saturday, Sept. 4
3-6 p.m. (GOLF)

Sunday, Sept. 5
3-6 p.m. (NBC)

Monday, Sept. 6
2-6 p.m. (NBC)

PGA Tour radio coverage

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: Keith Allison/Flickr)