Close your eyes and imagine that your boy Shanks here is Commissioner of the PGA Tour. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a real stretch, but bear with me. I’d be going to those generous folks at FedEx with a better concept for their wildly lucrative FedEx Cup competition and here it is: operate it similarly to a longer version of the U.S. Amateur Championship.

They would use their FedEx point system to determine the field over the season and also throughout the first three events (even though one event too many) but when it comes to the final Tour Championship event, it must to go to match play for a final field of 16 or 32 participants. Elimination matches inherently have more drama than stroke play rounds and drama is what they are trying to create. You know some of these guys would be choking their guts out standing over a million dollar putt. Surely a playoff system such as this would produce a season-long champion worthy of the title.

Look at it this way: Phil Mickelson just won about $3 million in bonus money and Tiger Woods won $10 million. Can you imagine, instead of what we saw, a 36 hole championship match between those two for the $7 million difference? I’m thinking a huge money match like that where the winner will be crowned PGA Tour Champion of the Year would have just the right panache.

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