'A Glorified Qualifying Event'

From WTNH in Connecticut, a brief about saving what used to be the Greater Hartford Open:

He says it's justice that the tournament has gained new life with a new sponsor -- St. Paul Travelers -- and a spot on the summer schedule beginning next year. He says he'll be back for this year's tournament next month in Cromwell.

For a while it looked as if Faxon would go down as the final defending champion in the popular event, which began in 1952 as the Insurance Open and evolved into the Greater Hartford Open.

But Buick announced earlier this year that it was pulling its sponsorship after this tournament. The PGA planned to make it part of the secondary "Fall Series" of tournaments, a glorified qualifying event for professionals still in need of a PGA exemption card.

Yep, and that's what the Washington DC area is looking at after this, the last year of the Booz-Allen. If local organizers manage to find new sponsorship, we won't even be part of the ludicrous Fedex Cup. The only thing separating the post-Booz Allen from the Nationwide Tour will be the prize money. Here's a summary from the PGA:

Once the FedEx Cup season concludes with THE TOUR Championship Presented by Coca-Cola, the TOUR will enter the Fall Series, featuring six to seven official money tournaments that will determine the remainder of the 125 players eligible for the next year's FedEx Cup. The entire series will be telecast on The Golf Channel.

Every single mind-numbing stroke--promise? 

That's PGA golf for you, folks--in two short years we go from Sergio Garcia winning at Congressional to The Home Shopping Channel cable TV.

In the fall.

Did somebody egg Tim Finchem's house or something?