"Despite having recently signed a new five-year deal, they are still underpaid and overworked."

While doing my traditional power flip through October's Golf Magazine, I managed to slow down enough to avoid a paper cut and stumble on David Feherty's column celebrating the career of retiring PGA Tour rules offical George Boutrell.

While the column is classic Feherty, repleat with several plum fart and hemorroid jokes, he isn't too wild about the Tour's treatment of its officials.

One reason George retired early was his compassion for the people who sat beside him in coach after a week of dealing with prima donnas who wanted drops from lies where the grass wasn't growing in the right direction, viewers calling in with idiotic rulings, missing and presumed stolen courtesy cars, and frequent cavity searches at airport security.

After years of being seated next to hideously cheerful "Isn't flying fun? What do you do for a living?" nimrods, he knew that eventually he was going to kill and eat one of them. In an age during which professional golf is rolling in cash, Rules officials still have to fly in the back of the airplane.

The Tour is lucky to have such great officials. Despite having recently signed a new five-year deal, they are still underpaid and overworked. Now it seems the ones with the most experience are becoming an endangered species.