THE TOUR Championship Presented By Coca-Cola - Round One

There are many catastrophes on the list of worst recurring nightmares for college students (for instance, realizing you’ve been going to the wrong class for the first few weeks of the semester or walking halfway across campus only to discover that you forgot to put on pants that morning), but the worst fear by far is waking up to find that you just slept through a final exam.

Professional golfer Jim Furyk is no longer in college, but he certainly has a new appreciation for the seemingly foolish anxieties of college life after his mistake at the Barclay's in late August.

It is not often that I, as a college student, find myself relating to a professional golfer. After all, there are so many more exciting sports out there that command my attention, such as smash-mouth football, toothless hockey, tense baseball games and anything involving Shaquille O’Neal, a gimmick and a camera.

Yet a few weeks ago, I found myself outraged with something that occurred in a sport frequently cited as being as exciting as watching grass grow (which is actually a fundamental part of the sport, but I digress).

My outrage occurred when I found out what Furyk had done to get disqualified from the Barclay’s golf tournament in Paramus, N.J. Furyk had committed the heinous crime of waking up Wednesday only to discover he had slept through his tee time for the tournament's Pro-Am.

Apparently, the PGA Tour rule book says this offense is so disgraceful that it prohibits any player who misses his scheduled tee time for the Pro-Am from competing in the rest of the tournament.

I could understand such a harsh punishment for oversleeping if the reason for Furyk’s tardiness was that he had been out late at night cavorting with Tiger Woods and his ladies or with John Daly and his various demons. But neither of those things prevented Furyk from making it to the course on time. The man’s cell phone battery simply died overnight. The alarm he set never went off.

The fact that the PGA Tour would punish a player for missing his tee time at the Pro-Am, a gimmicky event that has absolutely no bearing on the tournament itself, is outrageous. The fact that the tour’s commissioner did not overrule the decision to prohibit Furyk from playing in the tournament shows just how archaic, outdated and inflexible the sport of golf has become.

Furyk's disqualification may not seem like a big deal but the Barclay’s tournament is one of the events that counts in the Fed-Ex Cup standings, which awards $10 million dollars to the golfer who finishes in first place at the end of the year.

Was this really a $10 million dollar mistake?

While Furyk’s reaction to the punishment was commendable (taking full responsibility for a laughable mistake and saying sorry to the fans) his opponents in the tournament did not respond so calmly.

Ernie Els was shocked that the PGA failed to act with flexibility and that they didn't reconsider the harsh punishment.

Phil Mickelson, one of the faces of the sport, was even more outraged.

Mickelson cited the fact that only half of the players entered in the official tournament are even invited to participate in the Pro-Am, saying the rule “can't be disqualification if it only applies to half the field."

"I could not disagree with it more," Mickelson said of the Pro-Am rule. "I have no idea how the commissioner let this rule go through. It’s ridiculous.”

That the PGA's punishment could elicit such a harsh reaction from a normally easygoing man should underscore just how egregious this decision was.

Furyk being ruled ineligible for the tournament is just the latest example of sports’ governing bodies punishing all the wrong people. On the plus side, at least Furyk didn’t forget to put on his pants before racing across the golf course in a last-ditch attempt to make his tee time.

That would’ve really got on the PGA’s nerves.

To reach writer John Collins, click here.