Here I was thinking we had at least another two weeks before the FedEx Cup obituaries started rolling in and Cameron Morfit had to go and pen one before the art department could even come up with a cutesy graphic.

The FedEx Cup is stuck in a major end-of-season traffic jam. All of the individual events anyone cares about are over. In fact, judging from the breathless, parking lot stakeouts of Brett Favre, the press and public tuned out the Tiger-less Tour even during the year's final major. Paddy's PGA was no match for Brett's SUV.

And still the FedEx soldiers on despite the Olympics and an upcoming two-week break after the BMW Championship, necessitated by the Ryder Cup. Ultimately only 30 players will convene for the FedEx finale, the Tour Championship at East Lake outside Atlanta, because the smaller the field, the more "exclusive" (important) it is.

That's the idea, anyway. In reality a limited field holds limited appeal because it increases the likelihood that one hot player will run away with the tournament. It happened last year with Woods, but a mere mortal also could run away and hide with only 29 other guys chasing him. (A total of 315 players started the U.S. Amateur on Monday.)

Perhaps the FedEx champion won't be determined until the back nine on Sunday of the Tour Championship. That would be nice, but the rules are complicated. The Tour has arbitrarily narrowed the gap between players to start the playoffs, from 1,000 to 500 points. Every player who makes the cut at the Barclays will get 2,000 more points than he would have last year. This is meant to create more volatility up and down the standings.

The Amateur is simple. Two guys go into a match, and only one lives to play another day, sometimes after a wild momentum swing or five, which is typical of match play.

Meanwhile the FedEx Cup remains a play for relevance via monetization and marketing, which looks especially silly every other year, when top players are more concerned about playing for God and country at the Ryder Cup.