It's hard to find true "busts" in the Fall Series, mainly because everyone is, for the most part, gunning for a Tour Card for next year.  Those who are not are usually trying to cherry-pick a check, and have the tendency to get run over in the process, and that can lead to a bigger name finishing poorly.  That's the situation this week; three players that by all rights should have been in the top-25 at the very least, and ended up with a four-figure paycheck at best.  Lack of length is really the only possible excuse here; it wasn't weather and it wasn't the field or the rest of the course.  These three simply couldn't get it done, for one reason or another.

Martin Laird - Yeah, I'm off this bandwagon now.  After a 4-week run (T-22nd at the RBC Canadian Open, T-4th at the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open, T-4th at the Wyndham Championship and T-7th at the Barclays).  Since then he hasn't finished better than T-50th; and only has one other top-25 all season long.  I got sucked in, I admit it; I really thought he was turning the corner and was going to become more consistent.  This week, against this field, he missed the cut.  He shot 77-72 to miss the cut; and his effort was accentuated by eight bogeys and one double-bogey along with 22 pars.  In other words, he couldn't score, at all.  He made just 46.4% of his fairways, averaged 34.5 Putts Per Round and 1.875 for a Putting Average.  That's all really bad; and why he missed the cut.

Chris DiMarco - His problem, obviously, is his length, or lack there of, off the tee.  Hitting short leads (on longer courses like this one) to extra strokes on your scorecard, and that's exactly what happened.  The only surprising thing about his 76-73 effort was that all his bogeys were on Par-4s, except for one.  It's one thing if you're going to average 258.3 yds/drive - but to average 57.1% Driving Accuracy with that; that's trouble.  Toss in 1.857 Putts Per Greens In Regulation, and it's easy to see why DiMarco missed the cut.  The problem is, he's 149th on the Money List, and really needs the top-125 if he wants to be a full-time player next year.

Heath Slocum - Speaking of bandwagons, I think I'm off this one too.  He had a great May and June (from the Wachovia to the Travelers), but since then hasn't been much of a factor at all.  This week, he finished in a T-73rd with the dreaded "MDF" (made cut, didn't finish; that means he didn't finish high enough to make the final round).  He shot 71-77-74.  Like DiMarco, Driving Distance may have been the catalyst to the poor tournament - he averaged 263.2 yds/drive.  He was far more accurate than DiMarco (85.7%) but he was far, far worse with the putter.  He averaged 33.3 Putts Per Round, and had a horrific Putting Average of 2.000.  He's a young player, and he had a good year, and will be on Tour next year; so maybe he can regroup for 2009.  Were I Slocum, I'd go on vacation and come back in January, but we'll see how this all plays out.