The same thing (essentially) can happen in the old system. If there are 69 players at a certain score or better and the last putt of the day is to tie that same score, making it will send those one stroke over that score home while missing it will include the putting golfer and those tied with him. This means either way, he is in and could take money from one of those players to miss and then putt in. Not that I'm agreeing with the change. I think it's better the way it was, but not perfect obviously.
Ah good, something to make golf more difficult to understand for newcomers, that's just what was needed. I suppose we'll see how it works in practice, but all of these convoluted things - be they silly new systems to determine who makes the cut and who doesn't, or league systems to determine who gets bonus prize money at the end of the year - make me less interested, not more. It's like tuning in halfway through a film or trying to pick up a series of 24 at hour seven. Will the three US majors be affected by this crap? What happens to things like records for consecutive tournaments without missing a cut? For a lot of people, the real drama in golf, especially in an era when Tiger dominates the top level so emphatically, can be found down around the cut mark as guys struggle to make their way on the tour. If that doesn't make good TV, don't blame the players, blame the producers at the TV companies for not knowing how to show us things that will make us care more about some guy who has his hopes, dreams and career on the line than we do about some millionaire trying to beat some other millionaire to another million dollars, another hunk of metal or another gaudy jacket. For a lot of marginal players, making the cut is like winning the tournament, and they're not just phoning it in on Saturday and Sunday, they're really trying to haul themselves up further, free of the constraint of having a week with no pay. I'd like to see a statistical analysis of where players finish relative to where they make the cut. My guess is that it would show the guys who made it on the number improve their positions over the weekend at the expense of the guys who make it by two or three. In fairness, I agree with the guy who wrote the article - the solution for the players is simple: you just play better - but I don't accept the implicit suggestion that there's nothing interesting to see in the early stages of Saturday and Sunday play.
Also, what happens if Tiger shoots -1 and every single other player shoots level par? Does Tiger win without having to hit another shot?
The same thing (essentially) can happen in the old system. If there are 69 players at a certain score or better and the last putt of the day is to tie that same score, making it will send those one stroke over that score home while missing it will include the putting golfer and those tied with him. This means either way, he is in and could take money from one of those players to miss and then putt in. Actually, in TerpFan's example, PLAYER A making the last putt would be improving his score and ending up in a tie with someone who (before the putt) would have made the cut. However, the scenario would instantly change when the ball hit the bottom of the cup and PLAYER A would miss the cut AND take out 16 other people with him. Those other 16 players miss the cut because someone TIED them, not beat them. In the regular example, the player making the last putt WOULD make the cut, as would everyone else with the same score. TerpFan has definitely found a potential problem with the system. PLAYER A couldn't possibly make the cut if he sunk the putt, so he would be doing his fellow competitors a favour by deliberately missing the putt. That situation cannot happen in the old setup.
In Terp's example, he is out whether he makes the putt or not. In mine, he is in whether he one putts or two putts. Where it is the same is he would be doing his fellow competitors a favour by deliberately missing the putt
