MDF?

JT Shriners Open - Round 3 Recap
by Randy Roberts

Michael Thompson finished in an unusual spot after the third round of the Justin Timberlake Shriners Open.  He ended up at -3 overall and with the "Made Cut Did Not Finish" (MDF) classification. Due to this status, he will not get to play the fourth and final round tomorrow.  He will take home a paycheck, and if the FedEx Cup season was still going, he would have earned additional FedEx cup points too.

The MDF classification was created to keep the number of players down to a reasonable number in order for there to be a timely finish for television on the final day.  The normal cut occurs after the second round and is the top 70 players plus ties.  Yesterday, there were 12 players who finished T-68 like Michael, meaning there were a total of 80 players playing in today's third round.  In order to ensure a more predictable finish time for television, when there are 78 or more players making the initial cut, they do another cut to the top 70 plus ties after the third round.  Since Michael finished the 3rd round in what would have been 75th place, he ended up as "MDF".  There were five other players who finished worse than Michael and they finished as MDF as well.  The upside of MDF is that unlike the first cut, the players still get paid, the downside is that they don't get another chance to improve their position.

Thus, Michael walks away with an additional $8360 which still counts toward the official money list, and a rare sunday off even though he made the cut.

Leaderboard
Scorecard
Live Projected Money List

Sunday Update: With the finish of the tournament, we now know that Michael stayed at 113th on the money list.

Sources: Answers.yahoo.com, PGATour.com, ESPN.com