Matt Kuchar for Player of the Year? Yeah, It's Been That Weird of a Year

The only way the PGA Tour 2010 season could get much stranger is if right in the middle of this week's Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston -- the second in the four-event FedEx Cup playoff series -- a hurricane hits the New England coastline and ...

Uh, oh.

So far this year Tiger went tabloids and Phil went to an arthritis specialist, meaning the top two players in the world ranking have a combined one victory. Three guys who couldn't get through the clubhouse buffet line without photo ID when the year began have won the last three majors. Dustin Johnson learned that a bunker does not always look like a bunker. Jim Furyk, not exactly a night stalker, overslept and was disqualified from last week's FedEx opener. And Matt Kuchar suddenly is the leading candidate for player of the year.

Unless he gets blown away this weekend.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center is projecting a strong possibility of Hurricane Earl swiping New England, warning coastal residents from North Carolina to Maine to watch the storm closely. Early predictions suggest a weekend arrival.

"The rule itself applies to only half the field ... I have no idea how the commissioner let this rule go through."
-- Phil Mickelson, On missing one's pro-am obligation and thus being ruled ineligible for the tournament The Deutsche Bank is scheduled to begin first-round play on Friday with a Monday Labor Day finish.

Think about places you would least want to be if 100-plus mph winds arrive. High on the list should be under a tent. Golf tournaments are one big tent city -- hospitality tents, sponsors tents, merchandising tents, first aid tents.

If Earl approaches they all must come down.

Then there will be the likely excessive rainfall and wind damage.

Say this for 2010. It has been different.

STRANGE YEAR, PART II

Sticking strictly with golf, nothing suggests how different the season has been more than the fact that Matt Kuchar has emerged as a viable candidate for Player of the Year.

That's Matt Kuchar, who won last week for his first victory of the season.

But nobody has more than two. And the four players with two victories each -- Ernie Els, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk and Justin Rose -- were not significant factors in any of the majors.

Kuchar, meanwhile, has a tour-high 10 top-10 finishes along with his Barclays' win. Six of those top-10s have come in his last eight starts, including the U.S. Open and the PGA.

"There's been a lot of great performances. I'm not even going to try to think about it," Kuchar said about the possibility. I still try to be humble. That's a topic that I'd like to be as humble as I could be over."

'FURYK RULE' SUSPENDED

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has suspended the regulation that resulted in Jim Furyk's disqualification last week from the Barclays after he was late to his pro-am starting time.

For the remainder of the year, a similar situation will be handled as a matter of unbecoming conduct. A player guilty of a similar offense will be required to participate in the remainder of the pro-am round and may be required to perform additional sponsor activity. A player who misses his pro-am obligation in its entirety will still be ruled ineligible for the tournament unless he has been excused in accordance with the provisions of the regulations.

The matter will receive further discussion at the Policy Board meeting in November.

Phil Mickelson made a solid argument why the old rule was a bad one: not all players are required to participate in pro-am competitions.

"The rule itself applies to only half the field," Mickelson says. "So if you're going to have a rule that does not apply to everybody, because not everybody played the pro-am, you cannot have it affect the competition.

"It's got to be a different penalty. It can't be disqualification if it only applies to half the field. So this rule -- it's not protecting the players. It's not protecting the sponsors. It applies to only half the field and yet it affects the integrity of the competition.

"I have no idea how the commissioner let this rule go through."

MR. PLAYOFFS

Since the FedEx Cup playoff system was implemented in 2007, this week's Deutsche Bank defending champ Steve Stricker has been Mr. Postseason.

Stricker's T3 finish Sunday at Barclays was his eighth top-10 finish in the playoffs, the most of any player. Also, the world No. 4 is the only player to compete in all 52 rounds in the FedEx Cup history, and Stricker's closing-round 66 Sunday was the 33rd round in the 60s during the playoffs -- also a tour high.

WOODS: 'IT'S MY JOB'

As Tiger Woods faces the possibility of his first winless season since turning pro in 1996, some critics are second-guessing his decision to return to competition this season.

Detroit Free-Press columnist Mitch Albom, appearing on ESPN's Sports Reporters: "If he gets it back, it will be when the calendar doesn't read 2010 anymore. In retrospect, he might have been able to save his marriage and family if he had said, 'I'm going to put golf in the proper perspective. I'm going to walk away from that.' "

That opinion is highly debatable. Something suggests there were bigger issues than coming back to play a handful of events.

And Woods' response to such suggestions was a good one: "This is my job. This is what I do. And this is something that I love doing. And I want to get back out here."

GARCIA IN RYDER CUP ... SORT OF

So Sergio Garcia makes the European Ryder Cup team after all. Despite a slump that cost Garcia a chance to play in his sixth Ryder Cup, the excitable Spaniard has been added by Colin Montgomerie as a vice-captain. He will join Thomas Bjorn, Darren Clark and Paul McGinley assisting Montgomerie.

"I spoke to Sergio before the Open Championship at St. Andrews," Monty said. "Things haven't been going well for him on the golf course, of course, and then he said to me, 'Let me have a role, let me have a role to bring back The Ryder Cup.' That's what it means to him. I think it's a great asset to everyone that supports the European cause that we have Sergio as part of our vice captain team."

MENTIONABLES

• Greg Norman, 55, is scheduled to tee it up at the Omega European Masters on the European Tour this week. It will be his first tournament in 12 months after undergoing shoulder surgery last year.

• Bernhard Langer's Champions Tour victory Sunday in the Boeing Classic was the German star's fifth title this year, making him the first player since Craig Stadler in 2004 to win five times on the senior circuit in a single season. In 61 career Champions Tour starts, Langer has 13 victories and 41 top-10 finishes.

• Andres Romero birdied four of his last five holes -- highlighted by a 42-foot birdie putt on the final hole -- Sunday in the Barclays to move from No. 115 to No. 100 in the FedEx Cup standings, earning the last spot in this week's Deutsche Bank Championship. His five-hole charge came immediately after double bogeys on Nos. 12 and 13.

• Tiger Woods led the Barclays field in driving accuracy, hitting 42 of 56 for the week (78.6 percent). Going into the week, he ranked 180th on the PGA Tour in that category, 55.32 percent.

• Peter Uihlein celebrated his 21st birthday by winning the U.S. Amateur with a 4 and 2 decision of David Chung. Uihlein, a junior at Oklahoma State, was a member of the winning 2009 U.S. Walker Cup Team, and is the son of Wally Uihlein, CEO of Acushnet, the parent company of Titleist.

• After winning the CN Canadian Women's Open Sunday for her second career LPGA title, 20-year-old Michelle Wie will play in one more event (next month in Arkansas) before heading back to school at Stanford.

• Tom Watson will celebrate his 61st birthday on Saturday, competing in the Champions Tour stop at Pebble Beach.