"It also sends the wrong message: that the PGA Tour will kowtow to demands from its star players when they are unhappy."

Gerard Gallagher of the Sports Network pens an interesting commentary on the rumored FedEx Cup tweaks and says the Tour should not back down again to the two stars who wanted a shorter season.

The PGA Tour's top players already do what they want, when they want. To campaign for a break from the five-week schedule -- which Mickelson and others have done openly -- is to say they can't handle playing five straight weeks, even for millions of dollars in a new playoff system fans have embraced. And that's hard to swallow.

It also sends the wrong message: that the PGA Tour will kowtow to demands from its star players when they are unhappy.

Many of the players who make the 30-man field for the Tour Championship will already have a break during the Ryder Cup. And if a player like Mickelson feels he needs a week off, he always has the option of just not playing.

We've already seen him and Woods do that.

By most accounts, the first year of the FedEx Cup playoffs was a success. The PGA Tour even got what it probably wanted most in the end: the best-recognized athlete in the world answering questions about his financial windfall.

Votaw pointed out that 98 percent of the uninjured players who qualified for the playoffs participated in it. The PGA Tour was "very pleased with...the support we received from the players, the competitions themselves and the results we were able to achieve in terms of television ratings, attendance, sponsor activation around the playoffs and media coverage," Votaw wrote.

So if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

A fair point, but I'm going to guess that the week off rumored for 2008 is a one-year exception to deal with the Ryder Cup.