Disney won't be happiest place on earth for all

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Peter Tomasulo, currently 201st on the money list, needs a big week at the Children's Miracle Network Classic.

Nov. 9, 2009
By John Maginnes, PGATOUR.COM Contributor

How is it possible to spend a week at Walt Disney World and be miserable? I suppose there are those surly enough to find the mouse and his trappings annoying, but I wouldn't want to have dinner with them. But even those grumps would have to agree that playing on the PGA TOUR is one of the coolest jobs on the planet. So let's take it a little farther -- how is it possible to be a TOUR pro playing a tournament at the happiest place on earth and be miserable?

The simple answer is because for at least a couple of players in the field for this week's Children's Miracle Network Classic -- maybe quite a few more than that -- this will be the last TOUR event they ever play. I know that sounds a little dramatic, but at some point you have to play your last. Everyone does. There isn't a player in the field, not even the handful of guys in their 50s, who thinks this is his swan song, but this is the final event of the season. Consequently it is going to be someone's final event, period.

If you finish outside the top 150 on the money list you are gone. Unless you have made 150 cuts in your career or have won a tournament on the TOUR you are done. You are so done country music artists haven't even written a song about how done you are. But in the field this week there are more than a dozen guys who are outside the top 150 without a leg to stand on professionally other than the fact that if they finish in the top 200 they do have some status next year on the Nationwide Tour.

When you look at it from that perspective, a couple of things become clearer. First, it is important to David Duval, who is No. 125 on the money list, to finish in the top 125 -- but it is not a professional death sentence if he doesn't. Rich Beem is in the same situation at No. 124 on the money list. Those two are going to garner the bulk of the media coverage at least early this week because they are marquee names on the exempt bubble. On years when it is Kent Jones or Tag Ridings hanging around at No. 125 on the money list, it is an interesting story somewhere below the fold on page 8 of the Tuesday sports page (back when people still read the paper). Duval and Beem are major champions and front page stories. But a missed cut here and they are still TOUR players with lots of tournaments yet to play in their careers.

Unless they do something outstanding on Thursday or Friday, though, the media isn't going to track down Peter Tomasulo (201st on the money list) or Derek Fathauer (203rd) to get their thoughts. Those two young men have each played 24 disappointing tournaments on TOUR this year. It seems like an excellent bet that both of these guys, along with another dozen or so players in this field, have made hotel reservations for the second stage of q-school that starts the Wednesday after the Children's Miracle Network Classic is over.

The TOUR is unique in that regard. In what other sport can you have a dismal year and immediately get a second chance? That is the only bright spot for all of those players whose careers are looking into the abyss. They will get another chance and history tells us that if it isn't one of those two players, someone in a similar predicament this week will make it through q-school and start all over again in January.

We also know that someone this week will come from nowhere, challenge for the title and finish in the top 125. But while all of that is going on there will be plenty of other stories untold. Friday afternoon there will be players riding silently away from the Palm or Magnolia Course driving a courtesy car for the last time. As the sounds of screaming gleeful children waft down from the Magic Kingdom over the golf course they will make their way back to their rooms and try to figure out where it all went wrong. They will make travel plans and pack up their equipment and try to regroup in a matter of short days before they have to face an even tougher test at q-school.

There is something ironic about all of this happening at "the happiest place on earth." Sunday afternoon the mouse and his entourage will storm the 18th green and crown a champion. Spectators will cheer and one of the coolest trophies in golf will be handed to the winner. The ceremony is an entertaining spectacle that puts a smile on the faces of all those who stick around to watch. Well, almost all -- there are some guys at Disney this week that not even the mouse can get to smile.

Former PGA TOUR player John Maginnes is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM. His views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR.