Players hit Turning Stone refreshed after several weeks off  PGATOUR.COM Correspondent VERONA, N.Y. -- It was the rest of times, it was the first of times. If you've been mesmerized for the past month by the inaugural PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, you might have forgotten about Michael Allen. The journeyman from California didn't accumulate the critical mass of FedExCup points and sat out all four tournaments, the longest such fallow period ever created by the TOUR.  Michael Allen made the most of his enforced time off during the PGA TOUR Playoff for the FedExCup. (Stan Badz/PGA TOUR/WireImage)
You might expect Allen to spin a tale of spending the last month gnashing his teeth, sobbing at 2:00 a.m. about the injustices of the professional game and fretting whether he can climb 30 spots into the top 125 on the money list and keep his card for next season. "Actually," Allen admitted, "I had a great time. It was hard to leave home and come back out here." And what occupied his time? "Learning to cook. I made dinner for my kids at night and then breakfast the next morning while I helped them get to school." The TOUR's other half reappeared this week at the Turning Stone Resort Championship with most of the field looking refreshed after their mandatory exile. Rested is one thing. Needing to jump-start their games to protect their livelihood is quite another. In the span of four days, the TOUR's emphasis shifted from calculating FedExCup point permutations and big-money deferred payments to the official money list and the battle for a card-securing spot in the top 125. The undercurrent of needing to cash some big checks tinted the stories of what everyone did during their summer vacation. A total of 21 players in the 144-man Turning Stone Resort Championship field last competed in The Barclays, the first playoff event a month ago at traditional Westchester Country Club, half a state and a seemingly half a world away from the spanking-new Atunyote Golf Club. They are in the top 125 and will play as long and hard as needed to stay there. Then there are another 60 players at Turning Stone -- that's 42 percent of the field, a chunk including Allen -- who last teed it up in the Wyndham Championship at Greensboro, N.C. They're in serious need of a big showing or two and the richest Fall Series event ($6 million purse and $1.08 million first prize) would vault them into the stratosphere. "The practice range was a lot busier early in the week than you'd expect," noted Bob Heintz, coming off a three-week layoff following ties for fifth in the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee and the Canadian Open presented by Franklin Templeton Investments. "There wasn't an open slot at 3 o'clock Wednesday and guys were stacked up waiting to hit balls. You rarely see that. And the putting green didn't slow down until after 5." Heintz, like many players who hadn't played for weeks, seized the opportunity to relax before the push of the seven-week Fall Series. He spent the first few days home in Dunedin, Fla., plowing through paperwork and chores around the house. Then he flew to Bermuda with his wife and kids to visit relatives, some of the most relaxing days he's spent this year. Jason Dufner knows the feeling. Standing 132nd in money, he could have spent the last three weeks agonizing about keeping his card. Uh, no. "I watched a lot of football on my big ol' couch at home," he said with a broad grin. "Last year on the Nationwide Tour I took four weeks off when I locked up (his card for 2007) so this wasn't much different." Dufner, who lives in Auburn, Ala., squeezed in some quality tailgating time, complete with a few servings of barbeque. "I would have liked to have made the playoffs, because if I would have had this time [Fall Series] off. But the fall is kind of nice for guys from 100 to 175 on the money list because it gives us a good opportunity to rise." The need to make the top 125 is not lost on Bill Haas, who came to Turning Stone at No. 126. Even though his father, Jay, won nine times on TOUR (and remains a star on the Champions Tour), the sophomore TOUR pro is trying to figure out how this whole shebang works. "When I'm out here I miss staying at home," he explained, "and when I'm home I want to be out here. So I'm trying to learn some balance, which is a hard lesson." This is the 25th tournament of the year for Haas, who has missed 13 cuts and not taken advantage of the weekends the way he did last year, when he placed 99th in earnings. "I could get used to taking three weeks off," he said with a chuckle. "If someone put a million bucks in my bank account at the start of the year it'd be a lot different." Really? Even with a heap of cash in the bank it's difficult to imagine many TOUR players could sit still for an extended period. Mark Hensby canned his last putt at the Wyndham Championship and retreated to his Arizona home for a long summer's nap. The itch began almost immediately and by Week 3 he was in Utah, nearly winning a Nationwide Tour event. "Coming back here this week everything seemed new, it seemed different," he said. "Hanging out with the family you come back feeling fresh." |
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