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Fomer Tour Pro Omar Uresti Wins PGA Pro Champtionship, Pros Kinda Pissed

DG_1234 said:
As the previous post detailed, the PGA of America provides lots of career opportunities ranging from traditional club pro duties to course maintenance to food and beverage to teaching etc.... Any member PGA of America member is welcome to play in the organization's events, including the national club championship, and that is how it should be.
I doubt any players in the field are questioning Omar Uresti's right to be there.
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I think that is my point. I don’t know what the players playing think. It’s not my pig and not my farm but the rules as written are for members of the PGA of the Americas to give them an opportunity to compete.

For everyone who claims this is a “loophole” please provide an option to close the said loophole without unintentionally excluding members who would otherwise have an opportunity. If you want to exclude a guy who used to play on the PGA tour decade ago, how would you propose to do it fairly? What about a random guy who maybe had a very brief stint on tour making a couple of cuts 5 years ago but now works in club repair after he lost his tour card?

how do you justify excluding someone who had a pretty mediocre career with 0 pga tour wins fairly? He has 2 Korn Ferry tour level wins with the last one being 14 years ago.
 
DG_1234 said:
As the previous post detailed, the PGA of America provides lots of career opportunities ranging from traditional club pro duties to course maintenance to food and beverage to teaching etc.... Any member PGA of America member is welcome to play in the organization's events, including the national club championship, and that is how it should be.
I doubt any players in the field are questioning Omar Uresti's right to be there.
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That was my point. (y)
 
Blame the rule makers. He is pulling kind of a cheap shot but he wasn’t the one that left the avenues opening the first place.
 
just8abug said:
Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD
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We are talking about Competitive sports not Amateur sports.
The rules are the rules, if you don't like it change the rules but just griping is poor sportsmanship in my eyes.
 
From a personal perspective, I think the structure of the event keeps the door wide open for things like this to happen. Maybe it's because of the press it brings (would we really be talking about it if it didn't?), and maybe it's because it wants the best players to show up.

That in mind, I checked out their twitter and the PGA seems absolutely thrilled about Uresti's play, based on the updates.
 
This does not seem right.
 
tequila4kapp said:
That's bush league.
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It really is! They have a winter series down in Port St Lucie, FL and Omar was in a playoff against a PGA Pro and when Omar lost, everyone following the playoff erupted.

The PGA Tour and PGA Of America should be 2 separate entities.
 
campilobaxter said:
A few years ago Uresti came in 5th, then 2nd last year. This year the tournament was carried on Golf Channel and he won, bringing a lot more attention to the issue. I guess the Pros were hoping that the extra attention would push the PGA to finally change the rule. The Pros have been pushing for it for a few years now.

I wonder if there is some kind of middle ground. I don't like that a former 20 year tour pro is playing with a bunch of coaches from the driving range, but at the same time I don't think you can just exclude everyone that ever turned professional. Maybe if you won more than $1M on tour you should be excluded from these tournaments?
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The tournament was on the golf channel those other years as well and there was the a level of outrage at that time. I think the difference this time is he won the event.
 
4-over thru 7, lead down to 4.
 
There are always people that will find a way to beat the spirit of the law by using the letter of the law. PGA can either tighten up their language or continue as-is....
My guess, they'll continue as-is because tightening things up will prove difficult and probably create some other unintended consequence.
 
Stuart Smith today shot a final round 65 to get himself to a total of -1. Awesome performance !
 
captaincaution said:
:unsure: They are two separate entities.
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What I meant to say is PGA Tour players shouldn't get status unless they are active in the PGA. PGA Pros are not happy about Omar playing in these events.
 
MattyD-MPLS said:
What I meant to say is PGA Tour players shouldn't get status unless they are active in the PGA. PGA Pros are not happy about Omar playing in these events.
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Omar Uresti is a dues paying active member of the Southern Chapter of Texas PGA of America and has been for 20 years.
 
MattyD-MPLS said:
What I meant to say is PGA Tour players shouldn't get status unless they are active in the PGA. PGA Pros are not happy about Omar playing in these events.
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If you want to go full circle to separate them, perhaps the PGA Championship shouldn't be a major if you want to segregate PGA Tour players from active PGA of America Members. Otherwise you are trying to have your cake and eat it too.

The PGA Championship survives off of PGA Tour players.

Do we know for sure exactly what exemption Uresti is qualifying under. I saw an article from past years mentioning the A-3 but I see in this document that current A-3 members are not allowed in the Professional Championship.


The PGA member will not be eligible to participate if:
a) the member is serving a suspension from membership;
b) the member is suspended from tournament participation for National tournaments; or
c) the member is classified as Class F, Reserve (formerly Inactive), A-3, Retired Member, Life Member
Century or Honorary.

He clearly meets another piece of criteria in their eyes.

EDIT: I see this criteria is for the SR PGA Professional championship but here is the information for the regular pga professional championship.

 
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gmiller598 said:
The PGA Championship survives off of PGA Tour players.
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In addition to owning/operating the PGA Championship, the PGA of America also owns/operates the Ryder Cup.
 
5 man playoff buying for last 4 spots into the PGA Championship. Gonna be fun to watch this.
 
 
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