"October, that's when they pay off for playing ball."

Reggie Jackson

Who better to quote to start the month than Mr. October, Reggie Jackson?

Of course, for Jackson, who played on five World Series championship teams — three in a row with the Oakland A's and two, perhaps more memorably, with the New York Yankees — playing ball meant baseball not golf.

Baseball is the consuming sport this time of the year because of the Fall Classic. Golf has its Fall Series but it's hardly a classic now that Tiger Woods and golf's other FedEx Cup point leaders who played in the Tour Championship left only gleanings for the rest of the field.

Golf's Fall Series is sort of like the 2010 Pro Bowl in Miami — an all-star game without guys who made it possible for their teams to get to the Super Bowl. What kind is that?

Still, there's money to be made in the fall's four events, which begins this week with the Turning Stone Resort Championship in New York. After the President's Cup next week at San Francisco's Harding Park, the Fall Series concludes the PGA Tour season with three more events for a combined purse of $23.5 million, not bad gleanings considering.

This time, the jockeying doesn't involve the top 30 to get into the Tour Championship and the final leg of the Fedex Cup playoffs but for the top 125 in money rankings, which is the magic number to retain a tour card for next year if not otherwise exempt. Sitting at No. 125 right now is Harrison Frazar with Chris Riley right behind him, trailing by some $1,500. Not surprisingly, they're both playing this week.

Of interest locally is the jockeying for position on this year's money list by Dean Wilson and Parker McLachlin, the only two pros from Hawai'i on the PGA Tour.

Wilson ranks No. 155 at the moment with $360,686, a dropoff of nearly $1 million from his 2008 winnings and his lowest to date since joining the PGA Tour full-time in 2003. Unless he comes up with a big paycheck or two in October, it'll mean a return to Q-School to improve his priority status.

Also undergoing a disappointing year, McLachlin is even further back on the 2009 money list — No. 176 with $248,533. But at least he has the comfort of knowing he will retain his tour card for next year, thanks to a two-year exemption for winning the 2008 Legends Reno-Tahoe Open.

But it's long time no see for Wilson and McLachlin, both 0-for-September, each not having played on the PGA Tour since the Wyndham Championship in late August. McLachlin did play in a Nationwide Tour event last month but missed the cut. It has been a particularly vexing year for Wilson, who missed 11 cuts, including eight tournaments in a row, withdrew twice and was DQ'd once following his season-best showing, a tie for 13th, in the Verizon Heritage in April. Here's hoping both can salvage the year by making October pay off.

COMEBACK PLAYER?

Speaking of October, it's time to present awards to golf's best, in other words, hand over all of them to Tiger Woods. He's unquestionably the player of the year, the money champion with more than $10 million — not counting the $10 million he got for winning the Fedex Cup — and the Vardon Trophy winner with a scoring average of 68.05, the third lowest behind a guy named Tiger Woods since the award was established in 1947. But should he be golf's comeback player of the year as well? He's also being championed for that honor.

But it's stretching it a bit, don't you think? I mean, how can you come back when you're the No. 1 player in the world since June 2005. Still, stranger things have happened regarding that award — like Steve Stricker being named the tour's comeback player of the year, not once, but twice. When Stricker looked at his award after winning it for an unprecedented second straight year in 2007, he said, "This looks familiar."

Stricker didn't think Woods should get the comeback award. "Where did he go?" he said of Woods, who won four times last year, including the U.S. Open on one leg.

Tour regulations state that the Players Advisory Council may give the award during years if it feels it is warranted. Tiger has won just about every tour award. So maybe the thinking is make it another first for him, why not let him be the first to win player of the year and comeback player of the year as well.

SONY STILL IN LIMBO

Finally, it's October and do you know where the Sony Open will be after next January? A decision by Sony on whether it would continue as sponsor of the PGA event at Waialae Country Club was supposed to have been forthcoming in August, then September. It's now October.

The delay is ominous and it hasn't helped that PGA Commissioner Tim Finchem said at last week's Tour Championship in Atlanta that it's highly unlikely that the tour will make it through the end of next year without losing a couple of events.

Sony is among a dozen sponsors that have contracts through 2010 and negotiations are still ongoing. It figures to continue as a corporate sponsor of a PGA Tour event, but whether it'll still be called the Sony Open in Hawai'i remains to be seen. Sony Hawaii wants it here, but Sony USA thinks Torrey Pines would be a better showcase for the company now that Buick dropped out as the title sponsor of the tour event in San Diego. It's up to the Sony officials in Tokyo to make the decision between the two sites.

It would be a no-brainer if you factor in Woods, who has never played at Waialae but loves Torrey Pines. But the hang-up, it seems, is that the PGA Tour realizes the need of a second event here to go with the SBS Championship at Kapalua, Maui, to open its season.

Bill Kwon can be reached at billkwonrhs@aol.com