FedEx Cup Face Off

OK, so as you've probably read, the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup has some flaws, but it's here and as Tiger and Lefty's absence from the 2006 Tour Championship shows, something had to be done. The top players on Tour were becoming far too powerful. Hopefully a $10 million first-place prize will be enough incentive for those two and other big names to show up in September.

The two major positive differences between the original schedule and the new format are we now have an actual finish to the season, rather than just a slow, painful demise. We also now have a playoff system in place to create much-needed late-season excitement.

Players will have to earn their way into the final four, big money events as only the top 144 players on the points list will play in the first playoff event. Entering the playoff events, each player's total points will be reset according to their regular-season points totals, just as NASCAR does before its 10-race chase begins.

One sticking point that opponents to the system originally had was that 144 were far too many entrants in a "playoff". But, after stating that they wouldn't be making any changes to the system for 2007, the Tour did an about face and recently decided that the number of competitors would be reduced for each playoff event from 144 to 120 to 70 and then to 30 for the Tour Championship. A very smart move if you ask me, as it will just create even more thrills down the stretch.

Another benefit to the FedEx Cup system is that the Tour no longer will battle the ratings beast that is the NFL for viewers. Sundays in the fall have been owned by football, so it is no coincidence that the Tour Championship will finish on September 16th -- right about NFL Week 2. This timing will be especially effective for grabbing those East Coast viewers who, instead of watching some meaningless 4 p.m. football game, might turn to NBC and watch some VERY meaningful golf. I think watching the best golfers in the world battle for $10 million beats a Detroit Lions game any day.

On another front, some have worried about the majors losing their luster, but they will be worth more points then regular events and still will be prestigious, sought-after titles.

The Fall Series, which previously occurred before the Tour Championship when it lulled golf fans to sleep in October, will be moved to after the final event of the FedEx Cup playoffs, but still will garner some attention as players play for their Tour lives. Although there haven't been many late-season changes in the top 125 in the past, the fact that only PGA Tour members will be able to earn FedEx Cup points makes a huge difference.

And of course, we finally will have an answer to that age-old question: Who won the PGA Tour?

To quote old football coach Jim Mora: "Playoffs! You kidding me. Playoffs!"

As it concerns the PGA Tour's new FedEx Cup season, the word "playoffs" is a gross misnomer. We aren't speaking here of the simple, tried-and-true idea of 'you lose, you leave.' Rather what we have consists of a vague accumulation of points over a series of tournaments which attends the standard drama of stroke-play competition. Our focus, so Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem hopes, won't be solely (as it has been for time immemorial) on the winners of particular tournaments, but on who stands where in the points race after each event. In order to fully appreciate the drama unfolding in this points race, the fan must grasp the arcane implications of the numbers themselves. For those of us with a mastery of differential calculus, this might make for great entertainment, but I'm willing to wager that your average golf devotee has no taste for derivatives, functions and other such notions which summon memories of academic angst.

Yet even this argument is...how should one say...academic. The success or failure of the FedEx Cup concept comes down to one thing only. Will the big guys like Tiger and Phil and Vijay and Ernie be willing to play four-consecutive weeks at the end of the season? As matters stand, golf's reigning titans convene only 7-10 times in the year. Outside of the majors, that leaves only a handful of events scattered throughout the calendar. Finchem is searching for something more marketable that will give him the leverage he needs in TV contract negotiations. In a way, the FedEx Cup is his answer to the four majors, none of which is a PGA Tour trademark. The Commissioner envisions a mega-event owned by the Tour that rivals the majors in degree of public interest. It's hard to think, however, that anyone will give a damn about the FedEx Cup playoffs if the game's preeminent figures aren't entirely in the mix. Partial participation wouldn't do the Tour much good either. The Tour requires all hands on deck each week for the playoffs to make a sufficient impact in the media.

There's plenty of reason to be skeptical about the total cooperation of the big players. Tiger Woods met the news of the FedEx Cup with one discreet yawn. Phil Mickelson is another one who has been conspicuously absent from the troupe of player shills paraded before the press to parrot the Commish's enthusiasm for the new idea.

Beside that, just look at the 2007 schedule. There's only one week between the PGA Championship and the start of the FedEx Cup playoffs. After the playoffs, players get just one week before The Presidents Cup begins. Add them up and it means that players would need to play in five of the seven weeks immediately following the year's last major. That's much more golf than either Tiger or Phil usually like to play at that juncture. Each superstar structures his season around the majors and it's difficult to foresee them altering that much. The $10 million dollar prize isn't much of an incentive either, since both players easily garner such fortunes per annum anyway.

My advice to the Commissioner -- start begging!