"Piling up FedExCup points early might pay off..."

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In his notes column, Doug Ferguson reveals that for a change, the PGA Tour has tweaked a WGC event qualification that potentially rewards someone without a ticket to ride on the World Ranking Top 50 bus.

Piling up FedExCup points early might pay off for some players trying to get into the World Golf Championship at Doral. The PGA Tour added another criteria for the CA Championship, taking the top 10 in FedEx Cup standings the Monday before (March 12) and the Monday of (March 19) the tournament.

Previously, this WGC event took the top 50 in the world ranking and top money leaders from each tour. That criteria hasn't changed.

ALL CAPS ALERT!

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From the homepage of pgatour.com:

The PGA TOUR enters an exciting new era this week at the Mercedes-Benz Championship as the season-long FedExCup points competition gets underway with Thursday's opening round. Adam Scott will hit the first tee shot at 3:30 p.m. ET, which can be seen live on GOLF CHANNEL.

The Golf Channel THE GOLF CHANNEL TGC Tgc GOLF CHANNEL.

What a difference. Those branding people are good.

"This makes every game, every event, every weekend more important.''

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This caught my eye in Rex Hoggard's preview of 2007:

Flash forward eight months to the much-talked-about FedEx Cup finale at the Tour Championship. Best-case scenario is a Tiger Woods vs. Phil Mickelson vs. "Little-known Cinderella story" showdown for the inaugural FedEx Cup title in Atlanta at the Tour Championship. Problem is, the new condensed-season shop will make it virtually impossible for a potential "Cinderella" story to elbow his way into the FedEx mix.

Consider Michael Allen finished 153rd on last year's money list and played for an average purse of $4.6 million, compared to Ben Curtis (No. 30 in '06 earnings) who played to an average of $5.6 million or Scott Verplank (No. 40) $5.7 million.

As one player recently lamented of the bottom half of the Tour community, "They've got a ticket to get on the bus, but there's no seat for them." start. "This makes every game, every event, every weekend more important.''

Okay, not to beat dead donkey here, but how will a playoff with 144 players really change someone's approach to the season?  

"It's not the playoffs, it's a showcase."

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Olin Browne, talking to Craig Dolch in the Palm Beach Post:

"One thing that bugs me is they call it the playoffs," Browne said. "It's not the playoffs, it's a showcase. In the playoffs, everybody starts from scratch, the winners advance and the losers go home. Under our system, the San Diego Chargers would be given something like a 14-0 lead in their first playoff game, and that's obviously not right."

 I guess this pretty much sums up why the idea of not starting from scratch come "playoff" time is so silly.

 

"What we see the FedEx Cup doing is doing that on a weekly basis.”

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Damon Hack writing about the FedEx Cup, with this from Commissioner Finchem:

"When you see situations where a couple of top players are really pitted head to head, the Mickelson-Woods match from years ago in Doral, the year Ernie and Tiger went to a playoff in Hawaii,” he said, referring to Ernie Els, “those kinds of things can generate more interest. What we see the FedEx Cup doing is doing that on a weekly basis.”

That kicks in when, again? The Buick at Torrey Pines? Or the Buick at Warwick Hills? 

Tiger's Absences

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This column ought to make Doug Ferguson's next encounter with Tiger at the Buick interesting...

So here's how it shakes out. Woods can either take two weeks off to ski and then practice for the Mercedes-Benz Championship, or he can take five weeks off and return at Torrey Pines to defend his title in the Buick Invitational.

Should he play? Yes.

Woods was largely responsible for PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem revamping the regular season to make it shorter and more compelling. And while the world's No. 1 player is singularly responsible for a $6 million purse considered routine, he needs the PGA Tour as a platform for his worldwide success.

In other words, it's time to give back.

FedEx Cup Help

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I've asked this question several times, and I'm still not sure whether this is just flying over my head or it just speaks to general confusion over how the FedEx Cup works.

During his Target press conference Wednesday, Davis Love was talking about the Cup:

So we figured out a way to make it where the last four weeks there's a lot riding on it.  You know, if you're 60th on the money list with four weeks to go, you can win the FedEx Cup or you can get sent home in two weeks.

Okay, so logically, as Davis says, this playoff would allow someone to come from way back and make a wild charge in a four week rush.

A Cinderella story, about to become the Fed Ex Cup Champion.

But then I remember this from the PGA Tour's Ric Clarson, quoted in a Jerry Potter story:

"We've run hundreds of computer models," Clarson says, "and no player came from lower than 13th seed to win the Cup. If you're not in the top 15 going into the playoff, your chances of winning aren't great."

So again, is the winner of the $10 million Fed Ex Cup first prize only going to be one of 15 or so players heading into the Cup, or will this be more wide open, with the potential for an upset? 

"We are talking about a 37-week accomplishment."

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I'm sure the PGA Tour's Ric Clarson means well, but everytime he talks about the FedEx Cup, he gives you new reasons to not like it.

From Steve Elling in the Orlando Sentinel, writing about the 5-year exemption that goes with winning the FedEx Cup: 

Forget the $10 million bonus.

That's not chicken feed, but it's not all the winner of the forthcoming FedEx Cup will earn. The PGA Tour has added a potentially more valuable carrot -- a five-year playing exemption to the FedEx winner, matching the reward accorded winners of golf's vaunted major championships.

Sounds like heresy, huh? Then listen to this.

"Todd Hamilton, Ben Curtis and Shaun Micheel, they all had a significant one-week accomplishment," tour official Ric Clarson said of three recent, and mostly obscure, major winners. "That's on the resume for the rest of their life, but we are talking about a 37-week accomplishment. I'd say this trumps that.

"We are not saying the FedEx Cup is better than winning a major, but it's a totally different measurement."
Okay, you're saying, he's drinking the Kool-Aid, no news flash there. Then Elling drops this: 
As if the exemption isn't enough to stir conversation, Clarson said that based on computer models run by the tour, it is possible that a player could win the FedEx Cup race without winning any of the four so-called playoff events in August and September.

Which again is a reminder that these "playoffs" will be the most confusing in the history of sports, as viewers wait anxiously after the rounds for the points standings to be spit out of the computer. A true playoff would simply eliminate people each week in the build up to the Tour Championship.

Elling concludes:

Not to pick on the guy, but in theory, a player like David Duval could get hot for four weeks, win the FedEx bonus and then fall off the face of the earth, just like he did after winning the 2001 British Open. Yet his exemption would cement a spot for him on tour.

Oh, you can pick on him. 

"This format certainly makes the inaugural FedEx Cup next year seem less, well, playoff-y."

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Gary Van Sickle touches on something that I think is key with the ADT Championship: it's TV friendly on days other than Sunday. Of course the PGA Tour has run scared from such antics (ruining the International's Saturday cut to Sunday's free for all shootout).

Sadly, pro golf is a TV show first and a tournament second now. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar format become more popular.

Saturday's third-round telecast is usually inconclusive. A winner isn't crowned until Sunday. There's no closure. But the reduced-field format used by the ADT provided a sense of closure. And with only eight players left on the course Sunday, even though they all started out even before the last round, it's easy for TV to cover the action and be ready with features and backstories on the remaining contenders and not be surprised by an unexpected, early come-from-behind winner.

This format certainly makes the inaugural FedEx Cup next year seem less, well, playoff-y. That's significant because the Tour is touting them as playoffs, which they aren't. For starters, no other sport lets everybody into the playoffs -- not even the watered-down NHL.

And really, outside of the majors, what's wrong with a few more events shaking things up? And please don't give me the tradition debate. If the Western Open can be dismantled, tradition is not even on the table for discussion with the PGA Tour. 

It's Still Not A Playoff, And Will It Ever Be?

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On the FedEx Cup change that reduces fields each week, John Hawkins blogs over at GolfDigest.com:

It’s also fair to think the cuts will bring a healthy dose of credibility to a format roundly criticized for not being a “playoff” at all. Without a process of elimination from week to week, the Fed-Ex postseason only seemed to cater to the tour’s rank-and-file for the very reason Love mentioned. Admitting 144 players into the big dance was bad enough—a blatant concession to the middle class. To let 60 or 70 guys stick around for three weeks just because they had nowhere to play, so they could pick up paychecks despite having no shot at the grand prize, clearly defeated the purpose.
Okay, the 144 number was ridiculous and this addresses that to some extent. However, the players will be seeded going in and therefore the eliminations will not be happening from week to week based on poor play, but instead, where you fall on the seeding chart.

The key line on this issue of seeding came from a Jerry Potter story in the USA Today, who quotes Ric Clarson of the tour: 
"We've run hundreds of computer models," Clarson says, "and no player came from lower than 13th seed to win the Cup. If you're not in the top 15 going into the playoff, your chances of winning aren't great."

So with this seeding structure still controlling who gets to the Tour Championship and who wins there, it will (A) be nearly impossible to track who is getting eliminated each week (B) not very interesting because the top players will be secure (C) still not a true playoff.

This all boils down to Tiger and ensuring that and other names make it to the final week. So until they let go of the seeding process that protects the top players in these playoffs, they won't really be playoffs.

Of course, that means the regular season points are useless, and therefore tracking the FedEx Cup as it goes becomes a meaningless exercise.

In other words, the whole thing probably will never work.

But as Steve Elling notes and we (well, I) noted last week here, this week's ADT Championship offers something that the PGA Tour ought to be considering for the Tour Championship. Elling writes of this week's event compared to the Tour's faux playoff:

...we get to witness a true playoff structure.

The LPGA's revamped ADT Championship this week in West Palm Beach is limited to 32 top players who will be culled, collated and killed off as the week progresses. You know, eliminated. Kicked off the island green.

A true playoff. Here's where you can read more about how the ADT is going to work.

It's A Playoff...Sort Of

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Wow, maybe Tom Pernice ought to speak out more often. Here's his rant from two weeks ago, and now this from PGATour.com:

Specifically, the fields in the 2007 Playoff events will be reduced from week-to-week as follows:
Barclays Classic -- 144 players
Deutsche Bank Championship -- 120 players
BMW Championship -- 70 players
THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola -- 30 players

The release then included this from the Commissioner, who naturally is delighted to have his public statements from a week ago contradicted.

PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem said, “I’m delighted with this direction, and believe it represents an important improvement in our Playoff structure. I had recently indicated we would not be recommending any changes in our Playoff structure given that we had preliminarily announced the format earlier this year. However, the TOUR and a number of our players had heard from several sponsors and tournaments that going in the direction of a field size reduction was the right thing to do for the success of the FedExCup. The Player Directors and the full Policy Board were in unanimous agreement.

“Not only am I pleased but am impressed that our sponsors and television partners felt strongly enough to communicate their views on making the FedExCup as good as it can be,” Finchem said.

“We are now well positioned to offer PGA TOUR players, along with other important TOUR constituents, a more compelling finish to our season,” Finchem said. “With this step, PGA TOUR players, sponsors and fans can look forward to the inaugural FedExCup Season and the exciting drama of the 2007 PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.”

Now keep in mind that this is going to be one confusing playoff, because the season points race along with your play in these events will determine if you move. How on earth anyone will keep track of that is beyond me. But it's a start. 

"Using our input on it, too."

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Zach Johnson is either a big Kool-Aid drinker or, unlike most other players, he's actually been consulted on the FedEx Cup...
"We're going to learn as we go, but the potential is phenomenal," Ryder Cup member Zach Johnson said. "The Tour's done a great job making great decisions and using our input on it, too. It means a lot of positive things."