- FedExCup Points: 50,000
- Purse: $1.26 million
- Winning Share: $1,260,000
- Yards: 7,154
PGATOUR.com Editorial Coordinator
ATLANTA -- Robin's egg blue, a classic Audrey Hepburn film and the catchy 1990s pop song "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Those are probably the three things most associated with renowned jewelry and fine gift maker Tiffany & Co.
But what's less known is the mark the company has engraved on the professional sports world, where Tiffany and Co. provides the most-kissed piece of hardware for the NFL (the Vince Lombardi Trophy), the NBA (the Larry O'Brien Trophy), NASCAR (the Nextel Cup) and now the PGA TOUR (the FedExCup).
Master engraver Timothy Murphy, a 17-year engraving veteran, was selected to write the winner's name on the FedExCup for the first time. There are actually two jobs that Murphy has to perform on Sunday at THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, as both the Professional's trophy and the Keeper's trophy need to be engraved.
"There's the clubhouse's Professional's trophy, which has the winner of every year consecutively from 2007, 2008, every year going forward for 50, 60, 70 years," Murphy explained. "Then there's the Keeper's trophy, which is presented to the winner and is the one that they take home. The Keeper's trophy is trickier because of the angle, the shape, the bulkiness of the trophy. It takes longer than the plaque on the professional trophy."
After a 2-3 year apprenticeship, the engravers at Tiffany and Co. work by hand on up to 110,000 pieces of jewelry and silver per year. With all of that experience, it's not likely that the TOUR will be seeing "Tigar Wodds" printed as the first name on the shiny silver mantle decorator.
But has Murphy ever made a mistake?
"You have to ask me that today," Murphy said with a laugh. "We all make mistakes. We're human. But after you are trained the mistakes you make are small enough that you can fix them."
Since the name Tiger Woods is only 10 letters long, the task won't take as long as a Mark Calcavecchia or Padraig Harrington would have taken. The simplest engraving style takes about 90 seconds, while Murphy expects the FedExCup engraving to last for about 40 minutes.
But there's one name on the leaderboard could have been faster and that stood out to Murphy, who got into the engraving business because he enjoys working with his hands to create something timeless that will be passed down through generations.
"Not that I have a favorite, but I did notice that K.J. Choi only has six letters. That could have been nice."
