Editor's Note: Each week during the golf season, CBSSports.com staffers Ross Devonport and Steve Elling will take a scattershot look at a compelling and timely topic in the game, weighing in on the pros and cons while eyeballing the pros and amateurs. This week, they examine the seven remaining 2007 events on the PGA Tour, and whether the emphasis on the FedEx Cup has made them practically irrelevant.
Elling: Roughly two years ago, when the PGA Tour publicity machine first began to spew smoke on the FedEx Cup propaganda trail, I came seriously close to picking up the phone and calling the Federal Trade Commission. At the time, I was the golf writer at the newspaper in Orlando, and the brainless trust at the tour was insisting on marketing the FedEx Cup with terms such as "season-ending," the "culmination of a season," and other phrases denoting finality. Well, the trouble was, there were seven more events left in the season, and now the tour has cut the legs out from under them. It was borderline fraud to market the FedEx as being the end of anything. The season ends in November at Walt Disney World. So, I might suggest a marketing hook for these tourneys they marginalized: How about "The Seven Dwarfs?"
Devonport: It is a shame that the FedEx Cup has taken over and made these events nothing more than an afterthought, but did anyone really pay that much attention to them in the first place anyway? All it means now is that the Silly Season, that traditionally started right after the Tour Championship, now just includes these regular PGA Tour events. The diehards will tune in to watch any kind of golf, so you will always get some kind of crowd and the same little TV rating that regular tour events missing Tiger, Phil, et al, get.
Elling: Oh, the tour took care of killing the TV ratings in this frenzied FedEx construct, too. All seven “Fall Series” events are to be televised on the Golf Channel, which is to golf ratings what a single saltine cracker is to a starving man. While the ratings surely will be minimal, at least the Golf Channel cares, which is more than could be said about some networks (are you listening, ABC?) that formerly televised golf at this time of year. In fact, the Golf Channel has a few surprises up its sleeve. Since it’s got the broadcast rights to all four rounds of all seven events, they will not be using the CBS or NBC personnel early in the week. Thus, they are trotting out some new technical bells and whistles not seen since the early months of 2007. So, hopefully, the junkies who tune in will get their mojo filled. I think I just mixed some metaphors.
Devonport: The way you’re promoting the Golf Channel, I’m wondering whether you are getting some TV time this week. If you are, you might want to get something to lessen the shine from that bald head of yours. When you say "technical bells and whistles", what do you mean? Kelly Tilghman reporting in a bikini? Or is she considered CBS personnel? Anyway, why are all these half-decent guys playing this week? Don’t Robert Allenby, Brandt Snedeker and Vaughn Taylor have better things to do?
Elling: Remember that cool Aimpoint device that superimposed the break of the ball on the green, like the virtual first-down marker in the NFL? That's on the way back. And the reason those three players are teeing it up this week at the Turning Stone Resort Championship -- not to mention guys like Jason Gore, John Daly, Chad Campbell and Jerry Kelly -- is that it's a pretty cool event. It's staged at a popular Native American casino. Which fits, because this week marks the first time all year we won't have to hear about FedEx points. This week, like at a blackjack table, it's all about the money and all about the cards. Rather, where you are on the money list and whether you retain your tour card. That's the single-most compelling issue the rest of the way. Even the tour couldn't ruin that part.
Devonport: Ah, no wonder JD's playing this week. If he makes the cut, he can just cash his check right there and spend it within minutes. Genius! But honestly, who cares about scrubs retaining their cards except their biggest fans, friends and family? Now, Aimpoint on the other hand ... that thing was cool earlier this season. Golf needs more little gadgets like that. Can we have an on-screen thing showing the real-time amount of money in Daly's bank account at any given point this week?
Elling: Excellent idea. Maybe affix a lipstick camera to his hat to track his nocturnal whereabouts? He spent the week at the PGA Championship throwing around $20 chips at a casino in Tulsa. Another interesting wrinkle for the Turning Stone is the official debut of Nick Flanagan, a promising young Aussie who earned a Battlefield Promotion to the big leagues from the Nationwide Tour for winning three times in a season. Bad timing for him was, he won his third title the week the FedEx Cup started, and he was not eligible for inclusion in those tournaments, so he had to chill for a month. From what we have seen and heard, the former U.S. Amateur champion is as good as half the guys in this week’s field already. Down the road, expect quality Fall Series fields at the event in Scottsdale (where Mickelson is rumored to be thinking about playing), Las Vegas (hey, Daly deals with Lady Luck again) and the season finale at Disney World. The latter is the last chance for players to retain their 2007 tour card. As punishment, those who don't make the top 125 in earnings have to come back one month later to … Orlando, yet again. That's where Q-School finals are this year. However it plays out, those fans who are always grousing about the networks showing too much of Tiger Woods will get their wish in the fall, where it'll be nothing but fresh faces, or older guys falling on their faces. In some ways, to the twisted purists, isn't that more interesting than Woods winning another $11.26 million in Atlanta?
