I have to say that it's quite sad to see one of the coolest perks in sports appearing to be a casualty of the FedEx Cup/limited field lovefest. Hope they figure out a way to remedy what Steve Elling laments in this week's Up and Down column:

It's akin to earning a Purple Heart for falling down in the latrine. Michael Sim won his third Nationwide Tour event the week before the FedEx Cup series began, which meant that instead of securing the automatic "battlefield promotion" to the big leagues, he was out of luck. The FedEx fields are limited to the points leaders, and he has had no success landing positions in the Fall Series tournaments, either, as established players jockey to keep their cards. Last week, still locked out of a spot in the PGA Tour event, the 25-year-old Aussie went back to the Nationwide and finished second in that circuit's season finale. Since winning his third Nationwide event in August, he has played in one PGA Tour event, and it was on a sponsor exemption. While the landscape of the tour has certainly changed since the FedEx and Fall Series was concocted, there needs to be some accommodation for the players who earned their spots on the major-league roster. The conditional access needs to be greatly updated or eliminated. As it stands, it's about as meaningful as Elvis Presley's black belt in karate.