MacDuff's Post Western FedEx Cup Points Standings

As it stands now, the wonderful David Duval would get in the FedEx Cup playoffs if MacDuff's points system was used, but the future Ryder Cup captain (you can always dream David!) doesn't qualify using the Tour's system. I know you can hardly contain your shock over this development.

On a serious note. Really. I know "strength of field" is being taken into account in the Tour's version by giving extra points to the majors, THE PLAYERS and the WGC's. But that would seem to just increase the likelihood of big name players who are prone to play a light schedule, continuing to not play often enough.

While under MacDuff's system' each event would have more sway. Oh wait, this is all assuming that the playoffs are actually hard to get into. My bad!

^{1    Mickelson    22546.5        15
2    Singh    21859.37        16
3    Furyk    21312.5        14
4    Gf. Ogilvy    18487.5        12
5    Pettersson    18383.33        16
6    Glover    17241.66        13
7    Cink    17146.33        14
8    Immelman    17112.5        12
9    Weir    16659.37        14
10    Appleby    16437.5        13
11    Donald    16339.37        11
12    Toms    16196.87        11
13    Van Pelt    15940        17
14    A.Scott    15725        11
15    C.Campbell    15587.5        13
16    Pampling    15535        14
17    Pernice    15525        12
18    Z.Johnson    15362.5        13
19    B. Quigley    15075        12
20    Oberholser    14637.5        13
21    Bohn    14238.33        14
22    Verplank    14087.5        12
23    Gay    14037.5        14
24    Funk    14025        15
25    T.Clark    14010        13
26    Olazabal    13862.5        10
27    Sabbatini    13754.16        12
28    Mayfair    13679.16        15
29    Vn Taylor    13162.5        12
30    Choi    13125        13
31    Goosen    12937.5        10
32    Jerry Kelly    12600        11
33    T.Woods    12584.37        7
34    Senden    12562.5        12
35    Harrington    12450        10
36    Purdy    12375        12
37    Hoffman    12137.5        13
38    Love III    12050        12
39    Ames    12012.5        9
40    Imada    11667.5        13
41    JJ Henry    11662.5        10
42    Crane    11585        12
43    Watney    11535.71        13
44    Chopra    11479.5        13
45    Villegas    11475        12
46    J.Ogilvie    11468.21        12
47    Allenby    11262.5        10
48    Herron    11247.5        12
49    N.Green    11177.5        13
50    Flesch    11143.21        16
51    Els    11140        11
52    D.Wilson    11112.5        12
53    Lehman    11075        11
54    Warren    11075        12
55    Leonard    10820.83        12
56    Parnevik    10767.5        12
57    Sluman    10762.5        14
58    S. Maruyama    10550        11
59    Wetterich    10425        9
60    Stricker    10362.5        8
61    Rose    10329.16        12
62    RS Johnson    10305        10
63    Bryant    10257        10
64    Slocum    10187.5        12
65    Austin    10150        14
66    Poulter    10062.5        10
67    Curtis    9762.5        12
68    F.Jacobson    9675        10
69    Branshaw    9662.5        10
70    D. Howell    9587.5        8
71    Palmer    9466.66        11
72    Bertsch    9431.25        13
73    Jobe    9392.5        11
74    Kenny Perry    9375        11
75    Br.Davis    9342.5        11
76    Beem    9318.75        11
77    Lonard    9298.21        12
78    Howell III    9187.5        14
79    Hart    9167.5        10
80    Garcia    9112.5        8
81    Waldorf    9087.5        11
82    Micheel    9075        10
83    Lowery    9062.5        11
84    JB Holmes    8945.83        9
85    Estes    8925        10
86    Sean O'Hair    8824.5        11
87    Maggert    8812.5        9
88    G. Owen    8662.5        9
89    Barlow    8612.5        11
90    Goggin    8600.25        7
91    Azinger    8562.5        11
92    Rollins    8537.5        9
93    Andrade    8482.5        10
94    Couples    8437.5        10
95    Baird    8242.5        8
96    Pavin    8200        8
97    Mahan    8187.5        12
98    Gove    8175        8
99    Franco    8112.5        9
100    Sutherland    8075        11
101    DiMarco    7959.37        9
102    Gronberg    7937.5        9
103    Kaye    7900        11
104    Olin Browne    7812.5        13
105    J.Smith    7800        10
106    Sindelar    7787.5        12
107    Cook    7700        8
108    Calcavecchia    7617.5        14
109    Geiberger    7481.25        11
110    Leaney    7437.5        8
T111    Dickerson    7325        10
T111    Fischer    7325        10
113    Triplett    7175        8
114    Faxon    7125        10
115    O'Hern    7100        5
116    Langer    7079.16        9
117    Gore    7050        7
118    Lickliter II    7050        9
119    Bjornstad    7030        10
120    Baddeley    6962.5        8
121    B. Haas    6962.5        9
122    JL Lewis    6937.5        11
123    M.Wilson    6902.5        8
124    J.Byrd    6862.5        5
125    Bub Watson    6850        7
126    Barron    6606.25        9
127    Armour III    6425        8
128    Pat Perez    6350        8
129    Durant    6281.25        13
130    Cabrera    6162.5        6
131    Allen    6050        9
132    Gamez    5962.5        10
133    Overton    5887.5        11
134    Ridings    5737.5        10
135    D.Maruyama    5687.5        9
136    Atwal    5650        6
137    David Duval    5525        7
138    Garrigus    5505        9
139    Ws Short Jr    5462.5        11
140    Frazar    5375        8
141    D.Clarke    5275        5
142    Matteson    5225        9
143    Westwood    5187.5        5
144    Petrovic    5187.5        8}

Questioning Finchem

Ed Sherman on his Chicago Tribune golf blog:

...to hear people talk, rotating the tournament to other Midwest cities also was part of the price. No way. The Evans Scholars would make just as much money if the tournament stayed at Cog Hill.

We spent the entire week in the press room trying to figure out why PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem made this decision. There has to be something we're missing, perhaps some grand marketing scheme that is way over our feeble brains.

I don't think so. There can't be a reasonable explanation why the PGA Tour would leave the nation's third largest market to go to much smaller towns in the Midwest.

Even worse, do you realize in 2008 the Tour won't be in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.? When I asked Jim Furyk about that situation last week, he tried to be diplomatic, but you could see he was troubled by the Tour's lack of presence in the major markets.

Perhaps, the Tour wants to go small-time.  That has to be it, because its thinking certainly is small time.

They Understand The FedEx Cup In Chicago (Well, not really)

In a Q&A with Mike Spellman dubbed, "Let's wait, see about BMW Championship," Western Golf Association's Don Johnson demonstrates little idea of the FedEx Cup is going to work, and little enthusiasm for the scheduling change. Welcome to the club Don!

Q. When you first heard the idea of this playoff system, what were your thoughts?

A. I was confused.

Q. How long did it take to get unconfused?

A. Well, I’m not sure that I am. The point system and everything … I think anybody in the golf business who’s forthright about it is going to tell you we have to wait and see how this thing is going to work. The PGA Tour thinks it’s going to be wonderful, and I hope they’re right.

Q. It’s kind of a roll of the dice, isn’t it?

A. Yeah. And they may have to tweak it a little bit after the first year when they see how it actually works in fact as opposed to in theory. It’s certainly going to be a great thing for us being the final tournament before the Tour Championship.

Q. Why is the move from the Fourth of July to Labor Day a good thing?

A. The jury is still out on that, to be honest about it. I don’t know what happens to the interest in golf in Chicago after Labor Day. I’m hoping this event will be so spectacular that they’ll turn out, but we have to wait and see. It’s a work in progress.

Q. Your main worry about the September date?

A. You’ve got your Labor Day drop-off in golf, and then you’ve got Big Ten football, Notre Dame football; you’ve got baseball heading toward the playoffs … but we won’t have Taste of Chicago. There will be some competition we don’t have now. We’ll have to wait and see.

Q. Do the smaller crowds this year give you cause for concern next year?

A. Yes. The answer to that is yes. I worry that this week with the field we’ve had and the weather, that we have less people here than we had last year. (On Saturday) we had 7,000 less. That’s a lot. I don’t get it.

Michaux: "Finchem is a corporate drone"

In introducing this web site's week in review, I wondered why Tim Finchem has received little criticism for so many questionable initiatives, most notably the recently announced FedEx Cup.

Well, the Augusta Chronicle's Scott Michaux not only criticizes Finchem, but undoubtedly will have some Vice Presidents running around tomorrow working to make sure no one ever utters the words "FedEx Cup Evaluation System."

It is difficult to swallow, much less stomach.

What I'm talking about is PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem's undigestible contrivance coming in 2007 dubbed - depending on your threshold for corporate jargon - the FedEx Cup or Finchem's Folly.

A couple of weeks ago, Finchem unveiled the hardly anticipated FedEx Cup Evaluation system, which heretofore will be referred to by its acronym, FECES.

Whoa Nellie!

Without boring you in excruciating Finchemesque fashion with any of the details you already don't care about, it is just another list attempting to quantify the relative values of professional golfers in a cluttered landscape that already includes an official world ranking, money winnings, orders of merit, various international team standings, etc.

The only thing that makes the FECES curiously different is the PGA Tour's transparent attempt to mathematically equate its Players Championship with the universally acclaimed four major championships.

Uh Scott, it's now THE PLAYERS. Please, get your facts straight!

Finchem's goal with this whole FECES thing is to create a "playoff-like" finish to his laudably truncated PGA Tour season. Through the first 36 events of the season, the roughly 240 players who start the year with some semblance of official status will be whittled all the way down to 144 lucky few who qualify for a four-week, no-tee-times-barred, battle royale culminating at the Tour Championship at East Lake. For getting hot at just the right time, Finchem will reward $10 million to the man who, in essence, turns out to be the glorified player of the month.

When the FECES hits the fans, will anyone care other than the individual who'll get to fortify his already lucrative retirement portfolio?

No.

Finchem believes he created some kind of excitement that will compare to NASCAR's season-ending chase for its championship or the NFL's compelling buildup to the Super Bowl. Instead he's done nothing but give birth to another flawed BCS concept that ultimately won't resolve anything. He's tried to rationale his baby with another postseason analogy about a 105-win Yankees team having to start over in October, but those Yankees wouldn't have to start over against the last-place Royals.

And he's just warming up.

If this were the only thing that Finchem had overdone in his tenure as commissioner of the PGA Tour, it would be almost excusable. But seeing as he's callously dismantled or neutered some golfing traditions that have been around for more than a century in the process, shackled the tour to the ultra-fringe Golf Channel for an astonishing 15 years and stepped on the toes of every other worldwide golfing entity with his avarice, Finchem's Folly loses any benefit of the doubt.

Finchem is a corporate drone who believes everything is better based upon money. If the Players pays more money than the Masters Tournament, it must be better. If The Golf Channel is willing to pay you more money over the course of 15 years than ESPN would have for the next four, it must be better.

That's why Finchem believes he's doing a good job, because the players he (with one whopper of an assist by Tiger Woods) made rich and spoiled gave him a $27 million contract extension.

More money, however, hasn't made the PGA Tour better. It's made it worse. Extra zeroes only add to the numbing. If you really want to see the best players on the PGA Tour going head-to-head more often, start paying them what they were making back in the '80s and early '90s - when making a million dollars was a season's work for the hardest workers who performed the best instead of a week's salary for a tournament winner or the median annual income for finishing in the top 150.

Just how much of Finchem's decision-making is based upon money? Consider that the only way the nearly 70-year-old event in Greensboro, N.C., was spared the cutting block was because it ponied up $500,000 to agent Mark Steinberg - just to be granted an audience with Finchem in order to make its case.

Ah, there's a story that no one really has explored enough.

That was not a benefit granted to, say, the 102-year-old Canadian Open, which was rendered all but obsolete with an untenable date between the British Open and PGA. Or the Western Open, which will be stripped of its venerable title and relegated to semi-annual visits to the Chicago area. Or the tournament outside Washington D.C., which was shut out of the regular season because FedEx attracted favoritism to its Memphis, Tenn., event. Or the Disney Classic and 84-year-old Texas Open, which were all but dismissed without any more dialogue than a curt "thanks for coming."

Not that the overly fattened PGA Tour season couldn't use a little trimming, but Finchem handled the whole process badly.

This next statement is precisely why Finchem can't be relied upon to deal with equipment.

Finchem constantly displays an arrogant disregard for everything in golf outside of his own tunnel vision. Who cares if the new tour schedule will gut the European Tour's prime events during the spring and late summer? Who cares if its big announcements distract the attention from the LPGA Tour's most important event? Who cares if none of the so-called World Golf Championship events are played in front of audiences outside the United States?

Finchem has unilaterally constructed the PGA Tour to fit his vision. Thank goodness he has no control over any of the major championships, meaning the most important historical results of the year will never be sullied by an inadequate TPC venue or distasteful title sponsorship.

At least that knowledge can settle the uneasiness in the stomachs of the constituents who really matter - the golf fans.

The Last Western

Ed Sherman lists all of the things disappearing with the demise of the Western. In all of the talk of FedEx Cup nonsense, I forgot that the "Open" aspect will disappear, meaning no more qualifying and no more spots for the Western Am winner.

It will be the last time it can be considered an open tournament. The stories about qualifiers always have been among the neat things about the Western.

It will be the last time Chicago can call itself the permanent home of the Western. The tournament has been here since 1962.

And last but not least, this week will be the last time anyone calls the tournament "the Western." That's been its name since 1899.

This week will mean farewell to the Western Open as we know it. After 107 years, one of the game's greatest traditions will be gone.

More Bad FedEx Cup Reviews

Bob Verdi analyzes the FedEx Cup announcement in this week's Golf World, and like everyone else, he can only find one positive: the increase in donations to the Evans Scholarship fund.

Even worse news for the Tour though is that in the same issue, Tim Rosaforte uses his notes column to say nothing nice about the concept (not posted online yet). 

This not only confirms that the weekly infomercial known as PGA Tour Sunday is dead, but also indicates just how disastrously awful the FedEx Cup setup really is. After all, if the PGA Tour's biggest cheerleader is issuing a lousy review...

Dolch On FedEx Cup

Craig Dolch writing in the Palm Beach Post:

The FedEx Cup is clearly still a work in process. Finchem admitted that many of the final details have not been worked out. It's not even a certainty the $35 million will be hard cash or deferred money. It's likely the system will continue to be tweaked the next few years.

Some already have questioned why the top 144 players in points will advance to the playoffs. After all, traditionally golf has rewarded just the top 125 players on the money list with their playing privileges for the next year. But 144? That's almost like all 30 NBA teams qualifying for the post-season — plus several top college hoops teams.

And what if Woods or Vijay Singh matched their recent nine-win seasons? They could dominate the PGA Tour all season — and watch someone else take home the biggest paycheck.

Some players are willing to overlook some of the details and take a wait-and-see approach.

"I think it's something we clearly needed to do," said Joe Ogilvie, a member of the Tour's Advisory Board. "We have some holes in our schedule, weeks that traditionally don't get a strong field. Hopefully with a yearlong point structure I think some of those holes will be filled."

But will they? Whether the FedEx Cup becomes a success depends upon the same thing: Will the top players decide to play in more tournaments? Woods never has played in more than 21 PGA Tour events in a year, and he says he doesn't expect that number to change.

I also wondered about this take from the Tour's Henry Hughes:

"I think the most challenging thing was finding a reluctance to change," said Henry Hughes, the Tour's Chief of Operations. "You could easily argue that our Tour has prospered, our television ratings have significantly increased over the years. But all sports are taking a little bit of a leveling out now, so we thought it was important that we take a look at our product."

Significant increased over the years?

You know, back in the days when a NASCAR rainout would not outdraw live final round coverage.

Campbell on FedEx Cup Announcement

That's Steve of the Houston Chronicle writing about last week's announcement, making this excellent point:

The tour announced its plan in considerable detail last week. If details escaped your notice, it's because the tour showed an astounding tone-deafness to the world around it.

Finchem laid out the points system and how the playoffs will work last Wednesday — the day before the scheduled start of the U.S. Women's Open.

Was it a display of hubris, a clumsy attempt to steal the thunder of the marquee event in women's golf? Was it obliviousness? Or was it a calculated decision to lay out a plan in a setting where it wouldn't get the sort of scrutiny Phil Mickelson gets when he picks his driver with a one-stroke lead at the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open?

Whatever the motives, what could have been a huge splash barely caused a ripple.

Make no mistake: A clumsily timed unveiling doesn't doom the FedEx Cup to folly status. At the same time, it doesn't give the impression the tour quite knows what it's doing.

And this is fun.

"The conversation," Finchem said, "goes something like, 'Let me understand this. If I win six times between Mercedes and Greensboro, and I've got $10 million in prize money, and I've an 8,000 lead in points, you're telling me I'm now going to start over again, basically, with just a little edge on everybody else?'

"And the answer I give is yes. And then in a couple of cases, I've had a follow-up question, 'Do you think that's fair?' And my response is, 'If the New York Yankees win 115 games and win the American League East, they start over.'

"And every player with whom I've had that conversation's response to that is, 'I get it, I get it, it's great; let's tee it up.' "

That's right, Tiger and Phil and all of the other guys who play less than 20 times are going, "Yeah! I get, I get. This means I don't have to play more events in 2007! Whew! Had me worried there for a while Timbo!" 

Van Sickle: It's a Cash Grab

Another bad review is in. Not surprisingly, SI's Gary Van Sickle isn't a fan of the new FedEx Cup "playoffs."

No doubt you've still got permanent goose bumps from last week's exciting disclosure about the PGA Tour's new would-be playoff system, the FedEx Cup, that culminates with a four-tournament showdown and a $10 million bonus to the winner.

And that's just the lead. 

This is the chance for Tiger Woods, who has won more than $58 million in PGA Tour winnings and was listed No. 5 on Forbes's annual rankings of celebrity earnings with an estimated annual income of $90 million, or Phil Mickelson, who has won more than $25 million on the course and at least that much off the course in endorsement deals, to scoop up another $10 million that they really, really need. It's a pure money grab in a sport in which money means little to the top players, who already have more than they can possibly spend. But if Tag Ridings and Tim Petrovic end up duking it out for the $10 million, it'll mean something to them.

The beauty of the idea, he wrote sarcastically, is that scoring a $10 million bonus is sure to improve a player's incentive to play more the following season and not be tempted to stay home more and scuba dive off his yacht or spend time with his family and, say, be a real person.

Van Sickle then goes on to lay out many previously undisclosed bonus points you won't want to miss.

MacDuff's Post Hartford FedEx Cup Standings

Even as the Tour follows 2006 with its newly announced point structure, running clock (181 days to go!) and silly 144 cut-off number to qualify for the "playoffs," we can still imagine what a points system handing out points equally would look like thanks to MacDuff. More importantly, we can picture how this would play out if the cut off was at 70 or even 100 players. Well, okay, it would still be boring, but at least the season might have some meaning.

_{^{1    Mickelson    22459        14
2    Singh    20134.37        15
3    Furyk    19587.5        13
4    Gf. Ogilvy    18487.5        12
5    Pettersson    16658.33        15
6    Toms    16196.87        11
7    Weir    16021.87        13
8    Van Pelt    15940        17
9    Glover    15879.16        12
10    C.Campbell    15587.5        13
11    Pernice    15525        12
12    Cink    15421.33        13
13    Donald    15189.37        10
14    B. Quigley    15075        12
15    Appleby    14987.5        12
16    Oberholser    14637.5        13
17    Pampling    14622.5        13
18    Immelman    14612.5        11
19    A.Scott    14575        10
20    Bohn    14238.33        14
21    Z.Johnson    14212.5        12
22    Funk    14025        15
23    Olazabal    13862.5        10
24    Sabbatini    13754.16        12
25    Gay    13400        13
26    Mayfair    13291.66        14
27    Verplank    13175        11
28    Goosen    12937.5        10
29    Vn Taylor    12525        11
30    Senden    12475        11
31    Harrington    12450        10
32    Purdy    12375        12
33    T.Clark    12285        12
34    Choi    12212.5        12
35    Jerry Kelly    11687.5        10
36    Imada    11667.5        13
37    JJ Henry    11662.5        10
38    Crane    11585        12
39    Watney    11510.71        12
40    Villegas    11475        12
41    Love III    11412.5        11
42    Herron    11222.5        11
43    Els    11140        11
44    D.Wilson    11112.5        12
45    Lehman    11075        11
46    Warren    11050        11
47    Hoffman    10987.5        12
48    Ames    10862.5        8
49    J.Ogilvie    10830.71        11
50    Leonard    10820.83        12
51    Parnevik    10767.5        12
52    Sluman    10762.5        14
53    T.Woods    10659.37        6
54    Flesch    10655.71        15
55    Chopra    10567        12
56    S. Maruyama    10550        11
57    Allenby    10350        9
58    RS Johnson    10305        10
59    N.Green    10265        12
60    Bryant    10257        10
61    Wetterich    10175        8
62    Austin    10150        14
63    Poulter    10062.5        10
64    Curtis    9762.5        12
65    Stricker    9725        7
66    Branshaw    9662.5        10
67    D. Howell    9587.5        8
68    F.Jacobson    9587.5        9
69    Palmer    9466.66        11
70    Lonard    9273.21        11
71    Howell III    9187.5        14
72    Garcia    9112.5        8
73    Waldorf    9087.5        11
74    Rose    9041.66        11
75    JB Holmes    8945.83        9
76    Jobe    8905        10
77    Estes    8837.5        9
78    Maggert    8812.5        9
79    Bertsch    8793.75        12
80    Slocum    8737.5        11
81    Hart    8680        9
82    G. Owen    8662.5        9
83    Barlow    8612.5        11
84    Azinger    8562.5        11
85    Rollins    8537.5        9
86    Andrade    8482.5        10
87    Couples    8437.5        10
88    Baird    8242.5        8
89    Pavin    8200        8
90    Br.Davis    8192.5        10
91    Mahan    8187.5        12
92    Gove    8175        8
93    Beem    8168.75        10
94    Micheel    8162.5        9
95    Franco    8112.5        9
96    Sutherland    8050        10
97    DiMarco    7959.37        9
98    Gronberg    7937.5        9
99    Kenny Perry    7925        10
100    Sean O'Hair    7912        10
101    Olin Browne    7812.5        13
102    J.Smith    7775        9
103    Sindelar    7787.5        12
104    Cook    7700        8
105    Lowery    7700        10
106    Kaye    7650        10
107    Geiberger    7393.75        10
108    Calcavecchia    7367.5        13
109    Fischer    7325        10
110    Triplett    7175        8
111    Faxon    7125        10
112    O'Hern    7100        5
113    Langer    7079.16        9
114    Lickliter II    7050        9
115    Bjornstad    7005        9
116    Baddeley    6962.5        8
117    JL Lewis    6937.5        11
118    J.Byrd    6862.5        5
119    Bub Watson    6850        7
120    Goggin    6675.25        6
121    Barron    6606.25        9
122    Armour III    6425        8
123    M.Wilson    6415        7
124    Pat Perez    6262.5        7
125    Dickerson    6175        9
126    Cabrera    6162.5        6
127    B. Haas    6050        8
128    Allen    6050        9
129    Durant    6031.25        12
130    Gamez    5937.5        9
131    Overton    5862.5        10
132    Leaney    5712.5        7
133    Atwal    5650        6
134    Gore    5525        6
135    David Duval    5525        7
136    Ws Short Jr    5462.5        11
137    Frazar    5375        8
138    D.Clarke    5275        5
139    Matteson    5225        9
140    Westwood    5187.5        5
141    Petrovic    5187.5        8
142    S.Jones    4980        9
143    Kendall    4923.21        6
144    K. Cox    4887.5        5}}

144=Quest For The Card Demise?

On the comments thread following Commissioner Finchem's teleconference last week, reader Chuck wrote:

...allowing 144 players in the playoff is an admission that there will not be a 'fall finish' or a 'quest for the card', as was originally planned. Guess they can't get any sponsors...

Though they do have a few California events lined up, is Chuck right?

Are the 144 player fields in the "playoffs" a sign that the post-playoff events have little future?

Or are the 144 player fields genuinely a result of the Tour's desire to make it possible for anyone to win "the Cup?"

Either way, I just can't figure out what the purpose of the season points race is when 144 players make these playoffs, with the meaning of the season points diluted?

Thoughts? 

Booz Allen Stories

Obviously I'm still catching up, but there are a few things worth noting in the SI and Golf World game stories covering the Booz Allen's demise. Though neither story questions what would actually require $25 million to redo Avenel (copper irrigation piping?), the handling of Booz's Ralph Shrader was laid out in detail by Gary Van Sickle.

While being wooed by the Tour, Shrader was shown what he calls "exciting" plans for an imminent $25 million renovation of Avenel. The tournament would have to be moved for a year during construction, and favors were called in so that in 2005 the Booz Allen could be played at nearby Congressional Country Club, which has hosted two U.S. Opens. Last year's Classic, played the week before the Open and won by García, was a huge success, but in the meantime not a teaspoon of dirt was turned at Avenel. Finchem blamed delays in getting the needed permits due to Avenel's environmentally sensitive wetland areas, an inexcusable planning lapse if true.

Shrader was equally frustrated in his quest for a preferred date. Shrader wanted the week before the U.S. Open every year, if possible. "One thing we learned in 2004 was that the week after the Open doesn't work here," he says. "Washington is one of those towns where, once the kids are out of school, everybody goes somewhere else and this place shuts down. The Tour said, 'Hey, get in line. A lot of people want to play that [pre-Open] week.'"

But six months before the '05 Classic, Shrader says he got a letter from Finchem. According to Shrader, "[Finchem] said, 'We haven't finalized the schedule, but I'm confident in assuring you that you can have your tournament before the Open three out of four years. Two of those years would be the week before the Open, the third year would probably be another date sometime before the Open, but the fourth year would have to be the week after. We are well aware of your concerns, and we are going forward with our plans for the course.'"

Shrader says he had several conversations with the Tour in succeeding weeks and met with Tour execs during the Presidents Cup in September. Another session was scheduled for two weeks later but was canceled by the Tour. Shrader says he received a subsequent letter from the Tour saying, "Give us another 30 days." Says Shrader, "The next conversation I had was on a Friday morning in January when [Finchem] called two hours before the FedEx Cup and the 2007 schedule was announced. He said, 'We've decided to move your tournament to the fall.' I was surprised, obviously. It was totally different than anything I'd been presented."

And Jim Moriarty writes in Golf World:

In a telephone interview, commissioner Tim Finchem said the tour never contemplated making any changes to Avenel until 2006, yet Shrader secured Congressional as the venue for the highly successful 2005 event held the week before the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2. While both sides acknowledge that permit problems have delayed work on Avenel, Funk, for one, wondered, "When we're spending however much money we're spending down at TPC [at] Sawgrass, doing a huge renovation there, do we have the funds to do a huge renovation here as well?"

Enter the FedEx Cup. Lo and behold, when FedEx agreed to ante up $40 million to be the title sponsor of the tour's new year-ending points race, the tournament FedEx used to sponsor in Memphis just happened to get the date the week before the U.S. Open coveted by Booz Allen. With the Players Championship moving to May, "It's just one of those situations where we had too much water to put in the glass," said Finchem. Good for Memphis, not so good for D.C.

FedEx Farce?

John Hawkins points out the many flaws and overall silliness of the Tour's recently announced FedEx vision. Namely, that the system will not genuinely reward those who play often and consistently because the playoffs take 144 players and attempt to give them all a shot at winning "the Cup."

It also remains somewhat fascinating (as far as FedEx Cup discussions go) why there is no cut of any kind over the course of these faux playoffs.

But back to the topic of Hawkins' post. As you know, reader MacDuff has been tracking 2006 using a points system that distributes points equally from event to event. The Tour unveiled it's points system that adds extra points for The Players Championship THE PLAYERS, WGC's and majors.

So here's what the PGA Tour's Top 25 looks like (with MacDuff's rankings in parentheses).

1 (1)      Phil Mickelson         17,483.0 
2 (4)     Geoff Ogilvy             15,797.5    
3 (3)      Jim Furyk                14,898.0    
4 (2)       Vijay Singh             13,663.6    
5 (14)    Stuart Appleby         12,132.3
6  (48)    Tiger Woods            11,362.4
7  (19)    Rory Sabbatini         11,214.3
8 (5)        David Toms            11,192.7
9 (10)    Chad Campbell         11,014.3
10 (17)    Adam Scott             10,705.6
11 (12)     Luke Donald           9,489.8
12 (16)    Rod Pampling         8,831.7    
13 (54)    Brett Wetterich         8,805.9
14 (15)    Arron Oberholser     8,610.0
15 (23)    Trevor Immelman     8,604.3
16 (9)    Carl Pettersson          8,445.0
17(18) Jose Maria Olazabal     8,339.1
18 (24)    Zach Johnson         8,126.315
19 (45)   Stephen Ames         7,912.3    
20 (25)    Retief Goosen         7,744.7
21 (11)    Tom Pernice, Jr.     7,400.2
22 (8)    Lucas Glover            6,719.1    
23 (39)    Tim Herron             6,581.2    
24 (31)    Tim Clark                6,395.2
25 (73)    Jeff Maggert            6,353.3

Note the leaps made by Woods and Ames thanks to the added points for the Players and majors.

And even as the system does offer obvious reward for those playing regularly and doing it well, I still wonder what the point of the "race" is if 144 players get into the "playoffs" and once there, the season points have little meaning?

NASCAR doesn't do it that way, and yet it was used as the model? 

So...

are you excited about the new playoffs that aren't really playoffs?

Elling On FedEx Points

From today's Orlando Sentinel:

In an interesting twist, though a player might have won a half-dozen tournaments early in the year, the point totals will be reset before the four championship series events. Those atop the regular-season points list will be seeded higher and assigned a new total based on his standing, but all 144 players who qualify have a mathematical chance of winning the $10 million bonus.

"If the New York Yankees win 115 games and win the American League East, they have to start all over," Finchem said. "It's a very volatile system, where a lot of players go into it with an opportunity to win."

After the first three championship series tournaments, the top 30 players in playoff points advance to the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

Whether fans will embrace the changes remains open to question. The LPGA adopted a points component this year as a means of qualifying for the season-ending ADT Championship in West Palm Beach -- which also will feature a huge payout -- and nobody has said much about it.