WHAT DOES MDF stand for? Well, it could be lots of things, among them medium-density fibreboard, the Maryland Death Fest (a festival near Baltimore which features our Granny’s favourite musical genres, death metal and grindcore) or the Mymensingh Debate Federation, a Bangladeshi organisation that promotes heated chat about sundry topics.
In golf land, though, MDF stands for “made (cut) didn’t finish”, a PGA Tour rule introduced in 2008 with the aim of keeping field sizes manageable for the final two rounds of tournaments. It ordains that the top 70 and ties make the cut, “but if the cut exceeds 78 players only the number nearest to 70 continue”.
Jim Furyk paid tribute to the innovation by declaring “it stinks”, John Daly described it as both “stupid” and crazy” and Vijay Singh suggested its introduction was designed purely to allow officials get home early.
Alas, Singh was an MDF victim at last week’s Texas Open when decidedly nasty weather prompted the organisers to imposed the primary and secondary cut rule, leaving 13 players who had made the primary cut – two of them on the Golf Masters’ list, Singh and Justin Leonard – with the dreaded MDF beside their names.
In other words, the group was politely asked to go home before the third round, ending their managers’ hopes of them winning more than a paltry €1,500 (Singh’s mood hardly lightened by the news he’d dropped out of the top 50 in the world rankings for the first team in nearly 18 years).
That, though, is €1,500 more than Richard Finch earned at the Ballantine’s Championship in week three. Thanks to an eagle-eyed Wicklow manager by the name of John, the accounts of Finch’s 578 employers are now that exact amount lighter. They might recall, somewhat ruefully, he was disqualified at the Ballantine’s, the initial results indicating that the rule-breaking had occurred in the third round – which would, at least, have earned him €1,500 for making the cut.
The very nice people at the European PGA HQ, though, did some investigating for us last week, telling us that Finch was, in fact, disqualified after signing a wrong score for his second round (he had inadvertently dropped the ball in the wrong place during the round and didn’t penalise himself). So: “didn’t make (cut) didn’t finish”. DMDF, if you like.
