HARRISON, N.Y. (Aug. 23, 2007) - PGA Tour veteran Jeff Maggert is either a religious reader of WorldGolf.com. Or he’s a rare genius among professional golfers.

This afternoon at Westchester Country Club, Maggert argued for the same plan that yours truly campaigned in a WorldGolf.com column for spine-challenged PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem to adopt. The idea is that if you skip a tournament in the FedEx Cup playoffs, you’re eliminated from the playoffs.

No excuses. No exceptions. So this week it would be goodbye Tiger Woods - if he still skipped The Barclays knowing that it would also put him out of tournaments he loves like the Deutsche Bank in Boston and the Tour Championship (point being that Tiger would be here if Finchem had the guts to put this rule in place).

“I’d like to see some type of criteria or rule that if you pull out of a tournament, you’re pulling out of the playoffs,” Maggert said. “So if the playoffs started this week, if you pull out, you’re pulling out for all four weeks. I think that’s a good rule.

“Obviously there’s going to be a lot of players that aren’t going to like that rule, but if you want to promote the playoffs as “The Playoffs", some of the rules are going to have to be a lot different.”

Forget Maggert’s 66 that puts him one shot out of the tournament lead at this moment. This is a man who knows a great idea when he hears it.

And yes, I will accept part of Finchem’s salary into a retirement fund for the brainchild.