Player: Vijay Singh Has No Business Playing Korn Ferry Tour

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With so much going on in the world far more grave than whether Vijay Singh takes up a spot in a Korn Ferry Tour event, plenty have wondered why the story got so much attention.

Before I direct you to Mike Van Sickle’s guest piece for MorningRead.com, I’ll say its pretty simply a case of entitlement.

When Harvard and the Lakers were found to have accepted PPP funds during the COVID-19 pandemic, they returned the funds because no sane individual could make a case for either entity being entitled to funds meant to keep workers on payrolls.

While Phil Mickelson and others backed the 57-year-old Singh’s right to take a spot away from a player trying to build or rebuild their career on a developmental tour, it is the golf equivalent of the Lakers taking money they do not need.

From Van Sickle’s guest piece, and I do feel a channeling of another writer named Van Sickle with the closing zinger here:

The player who gets bumped from the field may be stocking grocery-store shelves to pay his mounting bills, such as what KFT player Erik Barnes has been doing at a Publix in southwest Florida during the coronavirus-imposed golf shutdown, just so Singh can get some “reps” to get ready when senior golf resumes.

Obviously, the rules say Singh can play. A PGA Tour player can dip into the KFT if he isn’t eligible to play in a PGA Tour event during the same week. Singh, a World Golf Hall of Fame member with a lifetime exemption, is not in the field at the PGA Tour’s Charles Schwab Challenge on June 11-14 in Fort Worth, Texas. So, he can play his local KFT event, which is practically in his backyard. He lives in the Ponte Vedra Beach area and is a divot-making machine at the TPC Sawgrass range. Singh is within his rights to play, under tour rules, even if it’s like Phil Hellmuth showing up for the weekly $10 buy-in poker night at your neighbor’s house to “get some reps.”