The first Fed Ex Cup is over and I’m betting most of the known world still doesn’t know what happened. Even CBS said it would not bore us with all the details.
Oh, we all know Tiger Woods won it. No surprise there. And in truth, even the PGA Tour can’t do anything about the way Woods has been dominating everything this year.
But, the Tour has promised it will do some tweaking after this year if it needed it. It needs it.
The first thing it should do is widen the field of possible winners. Going into the Tour Championship, only a handful of players could win it. That’s not very exciting. When you know only five or six players can win the whole shebang, you tend to focus on them and them only.
No other playoff is like that. The Super Bowl is winner-take-all. So is the NBA playoffs. Even baseball, with its emphasis on excellence over the long haul, starts dead even.
The Tour, always so businesslike, wants to reward players with a season-long points race, like an annuity or life insurance.
Golf patterned its playoffs on the NASCAR model. It should forget the good ol’ boys and pattern its playoffs over the other three, major sports.
Reward the best players by getting them into the playoffs, then winnow the field like they did this year. But, for the penultimate tournament, it should be winner-take-all. Imagine it: 30 of the best players in the world competing for $10 million.
Imagine further, if you will, that someone actually challenges Woods and it comes down to a six-foot putt. A $10 million putt.
That’s the kind of drama the Tour is shooting for. It will probably never get it unless the Fed Ex Cup becomes a winner-take-all. In that respect, it should be more like professional wrestling.
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5 comments
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§ Ron Mon®
said on : 09/16/07 @ 21:42
I was excited. I hoped against hope that Stricker would challenge him, but that's when the excitement wore out. -
§ Kiel Christianson said on : 09/16/07 @ 23:13
Sounds like you need golf V!agra, Ron!
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§ Dave M said on : 09/17/07 @ 12:07
Seems like the tournaments themselves were exciting, but the "PGA Tour Playoffs" were a bore.
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§ wendy said on : 09/17/07 @ 13:23
Couldn't agree more on your point re rewarding year-long performance by entry to playoffs, then winnowing, then level playing field for final 30. OK, Tiger would still have won this one (deservedly so) but he doesn't win EVERY tournament he enters, so it could have been far more exciting going into it. The final results bode well for the US team for The President's Cup (mathematically) however, although perhaps CH III should claim a "diplomatic illness? I can't get as excited by it as The Ryder Cup as my lot aren't playing, but love these team events anyway. Congrats. on Solheim, by the way.
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§ BV said on : 09/18/07 @ 13:01
Tim - I'm sure when you said "the known world" you meant the GOLF world?? At the risk of sounding like our resident liberal Democrat sadsacks (RonMon, Wolfie, and Kiel) - most of the "known world" was probably more interested in finding something to eat, than in the FedEx Cup...
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