It stands for "Made the Cut, Did Not Finish."

Judging from e-mails and phone messages, even many serious golf fans don't keep up with each and every rule change on the PGA Tour. But this new rule, which determines who will and will not play on the weekend, is important and controversial for many players.

The intent of the cut rule is to reduce the size of the fields on the weekends, with a goal of speeding up those excruciating 51/2-hour rounds that sometimes become unfinished rounds and slop over to the next morning.

Tour and TV executives have concluded that fields reduced to between 70 and 78 make for ideal pairings, fewer long waits on tees, and, therefore, better viewing. Not surprisingly, the players have dubbed it "Rule 78."

Like the previous cut rule, Rule 78 credits players who are among the low 70 scores and ties with making the cut. But, if those low 70 scores and ties make for more than 78 players - it happens about 11 times a year, the Tour says - the closest number of players to 70 advances to the weekend.

During the Sony Open in Honolulu four weeks ago, when the rule went into effect, 86 golfers made the cut at low 70s and ties. The field was trimmed to the closest number to 70 - in this case, the 68 players who finished two rounds at 1 under par, which meant 18 players fell victim to Rule 78.

Those 18 got credit for making the cut, they got last-place but official money ($9,805), they got 46 FedEx Cup points - and they got shown the door.

Among the 18 sent packing were Brandt Snedeker, last year's rookie of the year, and John Daly.

"It was all news to me," Snedeker said about the new policy.

Daly, who has no status on the Tour this year, was not so diplomatic. "I think it's crazy," he fumed to the Golf Channel. "It's a stupid rule, I'm sorry."

Stupid or not, if players were caught unaware, they have no one to blame but themselves. After complaints at the Sony, the Tour said in so many words to its members: Hello, do you people read your e-mails on those Tour-issued laptops we gave you? Did you not read any of the four notifications of the change?

Well, no, many of them apparently don't. They have people for that - agents, managers, handlers, wives, sycophants.

Already there is talk that Rule 78 is so unpopular among some players that it will be repealed after only one year. In the meantime, the best advice a lot of players are hearing is to stop bellyaching and play better.

"Some of the top-10 players like the rule," Ty Votaw, executive vice president of the Tour, told USA Today. "Some of the players who live on the cut line do not."

Who could blame the top players for liking the rule? On weekends, they are the guys with the late tee times, slogging along behind the slow-poke check-cashers who sweat the cut line.

And Rule 78 was not exactly shoved down the throats of the Tour members. The idea found enough support in the player advisory council, consisting of 16 Tour players, that it went up the chain to the Tour's nine-member policy board, made up of commissioner Tim Finchem, four outside directors, and four Tour players (currently Brad Faxon, Stewart Cink, David Toms and Joe Ogilvy).

There, the cut policy unanimously was approved.