For Canadian golf fans, it’s going to be weird watching the PGA Tour Fed-Ex Cup playoffs this year.
Why? Well, you can’t spell ‘weird’ without the letters W-E-I-R.
And for the first time since the Fed-Ex Cup system began in 2007, Canada’s best known golfer, Mike Weir, won’t be part of the post-season events. Only the top 125 point-getters in the Fed-Ex Cup standings qualify to play in the first event of the playoffs, the Barclays, and the Brights Grove, Ont., native finished 128th after missing the cut at the last regular-season event, the Wyndham Championship.
Weir, who was on top of the golf world in 2003 when he won the Masters, has been in the upper echelon of the Tour ever since — spending more than 100 weeks in the top 10 of the world ranking and posting 11 top-10 finishes in major championships.
But Weir, who turned 40 this year, has succumbed to life’s normal aging process and now, at the age of 40, injuries and sloppy play have invaded his game. His on-course earnings eked just past $500,000 and two Canadians — Stephen Ames and Graham DeLaet — are ahead of him this year.
Weir has suffered from tendinitis in his right elbow, and told Chris Stevenson of Sunmedia at the mid-August PGA Championship at Whistling Straits that “I can’t keep playing like this. I’ve got to figure out something different. It’s time to do something different. It’s too hard playing like that.”
Weir’s poor year has caused his world-ranking to plummet to 103.
DeLaet, meanwhile, struggled down the stretch after a promising start to his rookie season on tour. He had a third-place finish worth $336,000 in Houston in May, but cashed only seven cheques since, none higher than $33,000. Still, the Weyburn, Sask., native just sneaked into the Fed-Ex Cup playoffs, finishing 123rd.
Weir’s slide wasn’t that dramatic, and DeLaet’s ascension wasn’t that startling, but 2010 might be remembered as the year of the Canadian changing of the guard on the PGA Tour.
• Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel: “Lindsay Lohan got out of jail in just two weeks. The only way she could have been given a lighter sentence is if she’d been a star linebacker at an SEC school.”
• Greg Cote of The Miami Herald, on Seantrel Henderson, the Miami Hurricanes’ 6-foot-8, 330-pound freshman tackle: “I stood next to him the other day. Not for the interview. For the shade.”
• Vancouver’s T.C. Chong says he was saddened when the Mariners fired manager Don Wakamatsu: “He played for the local minor league team here -- Vancouver Canadians -- and we attended the same college -- Watsamata U.’’
• New Kansas football coach Turner Gill, to The Kansas City Star, on communicating with players in today’s generation of cellphones, text-messaging and social media: “Their thumbs are working more than their mouths.”