September 15 — Hey, who’s pumped and jacked for the PGA Tour race to the FedEx Cup playoff finals? Okay, then, who even knows, or cares, that the Tour Championship finale of professional golf’s so-called “season-ending” “playoffs” tees off in little more than a week in Atlanta?
If you find it difficult to care less about golf’s $10 million “Big Fake at East Lake” showdown, you’re not alone. As Golf Digest’s John Feinstein recently noted, the tour wants you to believe that the playoffs are gaining traction with fans, and that those fans supposedly have a clue about how the ridiculous system works.
Silly season. PGA Tour commish Tim Finchem even has his players shilling for the “post-season” matches, which, by the way, take place before the season officially ends.
“The PGA Tour playoffs, one of the most exciting stretches of the golf season, is now upon us,” Steve Stricker (or a ghost-writing typist) wrote on a Boston.com blog prior to Boston’s Deutsche Bank Championship.
“Most exciting” for whom? Golf fans, who tune out by the millions when Tiger Woods doesn’t play (and he’s not taking that midnight train to Georgia to defend his FedEx Cup title, after failing to make the 30-player cut at the BMW Championship)? Or the golfers, who are salivating over the obscene jackpot that awaits the winner? Asked and answered.
It’s not just the fraudulent timeframe that needs changing; it’s the whole framework. Seriously, if you have to hit people over the head with a 9-iron to convince them they comprehend and give even one hoot about what you’re selling, your whacky scheme needs more than a tweak.
Follow the money. For starters, does anyone really believe that Woods, Phil Mickelson, Stricker, et al, care a whit about winning the FedEx Cup? C’mon, it’s the multi-million-dollar bonus they’re after. Since there’s nothing new about that in golf or any other professional athletic endeavor, why not just model golf’s fun run on other sports’ established and successful setups?
Jim Mora notwithstanding, the whole playoff thing seems to work pretty well for the National Football League.
Win and you’re in. The four stages of the event and basing players’ eligibility on season-long play are fine. But get rid of the bogus FedEx Cup tally. The tour has plenty of stats it could use to determine who qualifies. Why not use the money list, world golf rankings, scoring average, or standing at the four majors? Heck, even greens-in-regulation makes more sense than accumulating bazillions of meaningless digits.
And about “resetting the points” after each playoff? If fans need calculators to figure out who’s in first, that’s a computation that adds up to zero interest.
Pointless. Take Charley Hoffman, a likable, surfer dude kinda fellow with long blond tresses and a good enough game. But the guy has one win this year, at the Deutsche Bank Championship, the playoff’s second stage, and is in third place on the FedEx Cup ladder. He’s 1,000 points ahead of Mickelson, who won the Masters.
As Feinstein observed, Matt Kuchar’s Barclay’s win was worth more FedEx Cup points (which start adding up like Italian lire, when 14,879 lire equal $10) than Lefty would have if he had snagged the Grand Slam.
Survivor: FedEx Cup. If it’s truly an elimination tournament, then make it one. Winnowing the field each week works, but if Mickelson misses the cut in the first leg of the playoffs, as he did at The Barclays, he’s gone. As it stands now, instead of one-and-done, Mickelson’s seeded 10th for the finale. Apply that logic to the NFL, and the New England Patriots would have “reset” their points and advanced to the next stage after the Baltimore Ravens blew them out of last year’s AFC wild-card playoff game.
In the end, of course, the FedEx Cup really is all about the Benjamins. Given that, perhaps the tour should take a hint from New England Golf Monthly’s Tom Gorman and update its slogan from “These guys are good” to “These guys are rich.”
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out at the Boston Golf Examiner and National Golf Examiner websites.)
Related posts:
- Is the FedEx Cup a Bust ?…….NO
- Is The FedEx Cup A Bust?
- Tiger Woods makes FedEx Cup playoffs after Atwal wins Wyndham Championship
- Tiger Woods needs top-5 finish to advance to FedEx Cup finals
- On-the-job training has Tiger Woods scuffling for overtime in FedEx Cup playoffs
