Last Call in Orlando

Stadler was the only one to work his way into the top 125 last week.
Photo: David Cannon/Getty Images

If you want to know the true meaning of the last tournament of the year, look no further than Craig Perks, the Aussie who chipped in twice in the final three holes to win the '02 Players Championship, who never made a cut in all of 2007 and decided to call it a career. Jack and Arnold get to wave goodbye from the Swilcan Bridge. Perks gets Fort Wilderness.

It's not as cut and dried for most. The majority of the journeymen just fade away. They are the old, the infirm, the just plain slow of foot left behind by the thundering herd. It is a bit too glib to repeat over and over that they're playing for their jobs. Of course they are. But the truth is also that the dream predates the check. This is where Ames, Woody Austin and Rory Sabbatini have it right. Can all these guys beat Tiger Woods for a hole? Sure. Can they beat him for a day? Sometimes. Can they beat him for an entire week? In their dreams.

Top 30 to Augusta. Top 70 to the invitationals. Top 125 get to come back and do it all over again in January. They weren't queuing up on the Palm and Magnolia courses to be Tiger Woods. They were lined up for a chance to be Ben Curtis.

The number-crunching started right out of the blocks. J.P. Hayes, protecting his position at 123rd on the money list, led after the first round with a seven-under 65 on the Magnolia. One shot back was Cameron Beckman, who began the Fall Series at 147th and free-climbed all the way up to 118th, where he could breathe again. Also at 66 were Ryuji Imada (67th and guarding the 70) and Verplank, the 24th-ranked player in the world, brow-beaten into coming to Orlando by his children.

"I got bullied into being here by a 12-year-old, a 10-year-old and a 3-year-old," he said. Verplank, the only unbeaten and untied member of the victorious U.S. Presidents Cup team, took the second-round lead with a bogey-free, 12-under 132. A shot behind were Ridings, whose money-list ambitions could only truly be helped by a victory, Ames (who at one point birdied seven straight holes on the Palm Course) and Ryan Armour, Mr. 147. Significant cut misses, other than Perks', belonged to Purdy at 125, Harrison Frazar, Mr. 130, and John Merrick, Mr. 133.

Brett Wetterich and Ames both held back-nine leads on a gusty Saturday. Ames three-putted twice in the last three holes while Wetterich drove it into the hazard on the left of the 18th fairway, accidentally moved a twig in the hazard while waggling his club for a two-shot penalty, added another penalty shot when he dropped out of the hazard and wound up with a triple-bogey 7. That left him three shots behind Verplank and Ames.

So was this the money-list version of coals to Newcastle, just the rich getting richer? Perhaps. But, to paraphrase Mike Ditka, who was discussing whether or not the New England Patriots ran up the score in a recent game: There are times for men to show compassion, but from 1:00 to 6:00 on a Sunday afternoon isn't one of them.

To some degree, the tour has been hoisted on its own petard. With the FedEx Cup season more or less successfully culminating at the Tour Championship, the Fall Series is a true orphan. Autumn golf has always been, shall we say, low-key. Now that's codified.

Despite having a handful of interesting winners -- Leonard, Mike Weir, Chad Campbell, Ames -- there is the sense the Insignificant Seven should represent more than mere bean-counting. A free ride on the monorail doesn't seem to be it.