Books
  • Lines of Charm: Brilliant And Irreverent Quotes, Notes, And Anecdotes from Golf's Golden Age Architects
    Lines of Charm: Brilliant And Irreverent Quotes, Notes, And Anecdotes from Golf's Golden Age Architects
  • The Future of Golf: How Golf Lost Its Way and How to Get It Back
    The Future of Golf: How Golf Lost Its Way and How to Get It Back
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • Grounds for Golf: The History and Fundamentals of Golf Course Design
    Grounds for Golf: The History and Fundamentals of Golf Course Design
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • The Art of Golf Design
    The Art of Golf Design
    by Michael Miller, Geoff Shackelford
  • Alister MacKenzie's Cypress Point Club
    Alister MacKenzie's Cypress Point Club
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • The Golden Age of Golf Design
    The Golden Age of Golf Design
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • The Good Doctor Returns: A Novel
    The Good Doctor Returns: A Novel
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • Masters of the Links: Essays on the Art of Golf and Course Design
    Masters of the Links: Essays on the Art of Golf and Course Design
  • The Captain: George C. Thomas Jr. and His Golf Architecture
    The Captain: George C. Thomas Jr. and His Golf Architecture
    by Geoff Shackelford
  • The Riviera Country Club: A Definitive History
    The Riviera Country Club: A Definitive History
    by Geoff Shackelford
Current Reading
  • Jenkins at the Majors: Sixty Years of the World's Best Golf Writing, from Hogan to Tiger
    Jenkins at the Majors: Sixty Years of the World's Best Golf Writing, from Hogan to Tiger
    by Dan Jenkins
  • The Leaderboard: Conversations on Golf and Life
    The Leaderboard: Conversations on Golf and Life
    by Amy Alcott


  • A Course Called Ireland: A Long Walk in Search of a Country, a Pint, and the Next Tee
    A Course Called Ireland: A Long Walk in Search of a Country, a Pint, and the Next Tee
    by Tom Coyne


  • The 19th Hole: Architecture of the Golf Clubhouse
    The 19th Hole: Architecture of the Golf Clubhouse
    by Richard Diedrich

    SI Golf Plus calls this the #1 golf book of 2008.

  • World Atlas of Golf: The Greatest Courses and How They are Played
    World Atlas of Golf: The Greatest Courses and How They are Played
    by Mark Rowlinson

    New and updated, including contributions from Ran Morrissett and Daniel Wexler.

  • Golf in America (Sport and Society)
    Golf in America (Sport and Society)
    by George B. Kirsch


    Fresh and well researched perspective on the history of golf in America

  • Pete Dye Golf Courses: Fifty Years of Visionary Design
    Pete Dye Golf Courses: Fifty Years of Visionary Design
    by Joel Zuckerman

  • Follow the Roar: Tailing Tiger for All 604 Holes of His Most Spectacular Season
    Follow the Roar: Tailing Tiger for All 604 Holes of His Most Spectacular Season
    by Bob Smiley

  • The Wow Factor: How I Turned One Idea and My Unbridled Enthusiasm Into a Golf Revolution
    The Wow Factor: How I Turned One Idea and My Unbridled Enthusiasm Into a Golf Revolution
    by Barney Adams
  • Anticipation
    Anticipation
    by Lewis Black

    The comedian's latest CD includes a 7 minute rant on golf.

  • Planet Golf: The Definitive Reference to Great Golf Courses Outside the United States of America
    Planet Golf: The Definitive Reference to Great Golf Courses Outside the United States of America
    by Darius Oliver

    Exquisite photography and lively course reviews/essays.

Classics
  • The Book Of Golfers: A Biographical History Of The Royal & Ancient Game
    The Book Of Golfers: A Biographical History Of The Royal & Ancient Game
    by Daniel Wexler


  • A Season In Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands
    A Season In Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands
    by Lorne Ruberstein

    A summer in Dornoch.

  • Emerald Gems:The Links of Ireland
    Emerald Gems:The Links of Ireland
    by Laurence Casey Lambrecht

    Beautiful images of the classic Irish links.

  • Bernard Darwin On Golf (On)
    Bernard Darwin On Golf (On)
    by Bernard Darwin
  • The Spirit of St. Andrews
    The Spirit of St. Andrews
    by Alister MacKenzie
  • Club Life: The Games Golfers Play
    Club Life: The Games Golfers Play
    by John Steinbreder
  • Discovering Donald Ross: The Architect and his Golf Courses
    Discovering Donald Ross: The Architect and his Golf Courses
    by Bradley S. Klein
  • Evangelist of Golf: The Story of Charles Blair MacDonald
    Evangelist of Golf: The Story of Charles Blair MacDonald
    by George Bahto
  • The Course Beautiful : A Collection of Original Articles and Photographs on Golf Course Design
    The Course Beautiful : A Collection of Original Articles and Photographs on Golf Course Design
    Treewolf Prod
  • Reminiscences Of The Links
    Reminiscences Of The Links
    by Albert Warren Tillinghast, Richard C. Wolffe, Robert S. Trebus, Stuart F. Wolffe
  • Gleanings from the Wayside
    Gleanings from the Wayside
    by Albert Warren Tillinghast
  • The Missing Links: America's Greatest Lost Golf Courses & Holes
    The Missing Links: America's Greatest Lost Golf Courses & Holes
    by Daniel Wexler
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« Al Ruwaya Achieves Its Goals! | Main | The Amazing Danny Lee »
Sunday
24Aug

"I was hesitant to weight the playoffs this heavily, to be honest"

Boy, you try and tweak to deliver volatility and now they aren't happy!

Steve Elling complains about the new FedEx Cup volatility and finds a soul sister in PGA Tour policy board member Stewart Cink, who has already rendered his verdict.

Now we all have motion sickness. Vijay Singh collected his fourth career Barclays title and jumped from seventh to first in FedEx points, and while that sounds like healthy leapfrogging, it was the absolute least tumult that could have happened given the far-flung scenarios that might have played out at Ridgewood Country Club.
Here's a real after-the-fact kicker. Cink has been a good company man all season and widely espoused the benefits of the new points system, but now that there are some crazy cracks showing and his peers are questioning him about the merits of the details the Policy Board authorized, he has come clean.
"I was hesitant to weight the playoffs this heavily, to be honest," he said.
Because lord knows you are entitled to another year end check for showing up four more times and continuing the mediocrity.

I have to say that for some bigtime free market preachers, some of these PGA Tour dudes sure don't like a little, uh, volatility driven by market forces (in this case, those forces are called playing well.) Imagine if they had a true playoff, or even a modified one and wiped the slate clean at some point. The bitching would epic!

Right now, that list would include Kevin Sutherland, a veteran with one career win, who hadn't been noticed in weeks and lost in a three-way playoff Sunday with Singh and Sergio Garcia. Or winless veteran Mathew Goggin, who hadn't been noticed all season.
"It's more than just about the bonus money," Cink said. "Guys who played well all year are getting knocked out of majors."
Ahhhh....now the truth comes out. Has that really happened yet?

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Reader Comments (11)

Not even a "clothing malfunction" with you-name-her from the LPGA could make the FedEx Cup exciting for me - Jim
08.25.2008 | Unregistered CommenterJim Beckner
how are guys getting knocked out of majors as a result of tweaks to the fedex boondoggle?
08.25.2008 | Unregistered Commenterthusgone
thusgone, it's because the Masters and US Open now include the top 30 in the FedEx as qualifying criteria, and that top 30 probably will include names that wouldn't qualify any other way (Sutherland, Goggin perhaps). Of course, the Masters doesn't have a fixed number of contestants, so Cink's fears may only materialize in the US Open.
08.25.2008 | Unregistered CommenterHawkeye
The problem is not the volatility, but the points distribution. First place gets WAY too high a percentage of the points, and everything through fifth gets too big a share, while everything less than fifth does not get enough points. If the points were to become more even, Kevin Sutherland and Ben Curtis wouldn't jump so much and someone like Padraig Harrington wouldn't drop twenty spots just for missing one cut.
08.25.2008 | Unregistered CommenterLEFTY
If the format is going to be considered as some sort of playoff, there has to be some benefit for performing well. In other sports, if you lose a game in the playoffs you are OUT, done, finished. Now Lefty is suggesting that the points get s p r e a d out so thin that nothing really matters. That sounds just like the normal tour to me. Play a mediocre game for the year, finish in the middle earn a huge pile of money and get rewarded for not really perfoming well. They know the playoffs are coming - they can prepare their game to hopefully peak at that time. If you compare these whining cry - babies with the atheletes who compete in the olympics it makes you realize how totally spoiled they are and how stupid and irrelevant someone like Stewart Cink really is. And to Jim Beckner - Life is what you make it buddy, so if the Fedex cup ain't your cup of tea, good for you and don't watch it. I suspect there isn't a whole lot in your life that is exciting.
08.25.2008 | Unregistered CommenterOld Tom
OT, surely you aren't asserting that the race for the FedUp Cup is in some manner exciting? The only thing about the Cup I didn't get to this weekend was dvring through all of the FedUp standings and blatherings on by the CBS crew. I'll get to that tonite to help me get to sleep. . .
08.25.2008 | Unregistered CommenterSmolmania
To all the whiners on the PGA Tour (and boy, can they whine!) who have to go home and sulk because they, you know, lost, I give you the example of the 1954 Cleveland Indians.
OK Ky, I just googled 1954 Cleveland Indians and Wikipedia informs me they lost and didn't return to the playoffs until 1995, that's 41 years. In recent golf only Greg Norman has come close., I guess.
08.25.2008 | Unregistered CommenterPickworth
Pick, I think his point was the Tribe set the record for most wins in the regular season, but got beat by Willie and the Giants in the Series. The nature of the post-season playoffs is that the regular season don't mean much. . .
08.25.2008 | Unregistered CommenterSmolmania
The Tribe didn't just lose the Series after winning 111 games in a 154-game season. They were swept by Willie and the Giants. Who will be the Vic Wertz (God rest his soul) of the FedEx Cup? I'm betting on Phil, but I don't know who will play the part of Willie.
Meanwhile Tiger just sits at home laughing at all these losers.

Padraig missed the cut and dropped 20 places - he's lucky it's not more. He missed the freakin' cut! I thought he was supposed to be the second best player in the world after winning two majors in a row. This bitching just highlights all the more that the PGA Tour is Tiger and a bunch of others sucking at the teat.
08.26.2008 | Unregistered Commentersteve

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