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By John Maginnes
PGATOUR.com Contributor

There is a golf tournament in Greensboro, N.C., this week. They call it the Wyndham Championship, but really, it is a tournament. As a matter of fact, it is the last tournament before the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.

Davis Love III won the Wyndham Championship - what was the Chrysler Classic - last year. (Getty Images)

Last week, though, there was no tournament in Tulsa, Okla. There was a championship. Apparently, tournaments are not dignified enough anymore. We have opens, classics, memorials and championships, but very rarely do we have tournaments these days. We even have a World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship -- which suggests two different tournaments. The World Golf Championships-CA Championship was only one tournament, but Tiger successfully defended a different title there this year. I live it, and it is confusing to me. I can't imagine what it must be like for someone with a life.

John Rollins is the reigning champion at Turning Stone the week after THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca Cola. However, he won the B.C. Open there, which was moved to Turning Stone due to flooding at its long-time host, En Joie Golf Club. The B.C. Open that Rollins won doesn't exist anymore, but the Turning Stone Resort Championship will be making its PGA TOUR debut.

Confused? How about this? Last week, at the PGA Championship, there were no sand traps. There were only bunkers. However, an up-and-down from the bunker was still calculated as a sand save. Go figure.

The Masters has patrons. The British Open has galleries. In Greensboro this week, there will be golf fans. They don't care what they are called. As long as the sky is clear, the golf is good and the beer is cold, they will clap when someone hits one at the stick.

Of course, Tiger didn't hit a single shot at the stick last week. As a matter of fact, he didn't hit one at the flag either. Although he and several other TOUR pros admitted to "flagging" several shots that week, it meant that they hit their irons close to the "hole location." This is a term that the players seldom use. On the first tee, the players get "pin sheets" -- which is our term for the "hole location" sheets that the officials provide to all the players and caddies. Apparently, a pin is what a seamstress uses to hem your pants.

Hold on. It gets even more bizarre.

Thank goodness Tiger didn't stumble down the stretch on Sunday and end up in a playoff. It would have been a three-hole aggregate playoff. Should those three holes have ended in a tie as well, there would have been a "hole-by-hole" playoff to determine the winner.

That means sudden death for those of you who don't have a copy of the Politically Correct Golf Terminology Anthology for a More Sensitive World. I have to admit that I was never a big fan of the term sudden death. When I lost in a playoff back in 1996 at Callaway Gardens, I was not real happy about having let an opportunity slip through my fingers. In hindsight, I think it may be as responsible for the gray hairs around my ears as taxes and marriage. However, when I called the bank the following Tuesday after my winnings were deposited, I felt more alive than I ever had in my life.

If we have to eradicate the term "sudden death," which, when you think about it, certainly beats the alternative, how about a more appropriate alternative? Michael Bradley made a 15-footer for birdie to win the five-man playoff that earned him a "sudden victory." That has a nicer ring to it, don't you think?

Hockey sends players to a time out like a politically correct kindergarten teacher disciplining Johnny for pulling little Sarah's pig tails. They call it a penalty box. Baseball has a play called the "suicide squeeze." They also have an infield fly rule that is so complicated that most of the players in the major leagues couldn't explain it with Cliff's Notes and a tutor. They shouldn't feel bad, though. No professional athletes know less about the rules of their sport than professional golfers. There is a book that comes out every couple of years called the Decisions Book that explains rules and their practical application. These decisions are more complicated than most Supreme Court rulings.

For example, a rake beside a bunker is a movable obstruction unless it is in the hand of a player or caddy, then it is equipment. Just ask Corey Pavin.

Since John Daly won the 1991 PGA Championship, golf has seen a greater influx of the masses than ever before in its history. Add the emergence of Tiger five years later, and we have been in the midst of a veritable frenzy ever since. So why are we making things more complicated for golf fans through semantics?

Take dead aim at the pin. If it ends up in the sand trap, swear a little if it makes you feel better. Then go hit it and have fun. But don't forget to rake the bunker.