The FedEx Cup begins today, the PGA Tour's attempt at a post-season, with The Barclays Tournament. Does this mean, like with most other sports that the real excitment of the season has begun? Is it like baseball, where the playoffs is what it's all about? In one word, no. That's right, I'm bitching about the PGA Tour again!I like the idea of having a playoff on the PGA Tour. As I've stated before, most tournaments have as much appeal as a hernia, and the Tour has been in desperate need of something more exciting. This holds especially true at the end of the season, where in the past, Spetember was a time for players to battle it out for 125th on the money list in such star-dudded fields as the 84 Lumber or South Farm Bureau Classics, hoping to earn their exemption for the following seasoon. The World Golf Championships were the Tour's first attempt at ending the boredom, but have failed miserably. Nobody can claim they have any more interest in the CA Championship over the Memorial Tournament, they're both just run of the mill PGA Tour events.
But the FedEx Cup was going to do what other ideas have failed to do, create suspense at the end of the season, and crown a season champion. A grand idea, but one that has fallen woefully short, and threatens to do the same for many years to come.
Where did it all go wrong?
The first problem was the Cup didn't even capture the interest of the players, never mind the fans. In 2007, both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson skiped one of the four playoff tournaments. The $10 million first place prize was supposed to attract the top names, but I guess when your two biggest stars each make over $50 million per year, another $10 million might not be as appealing as it woulbe be, to say, me. Of course skipping a tournament didn't seem to hurt either star, as they took home a collective $15 million from the FedEx Cup.
The next problem facing the FedEx Cup, is the confusing nature of the points structure. From the get-go, 'points' aren't very interesting as they're so arbitrary. In 2007, Tiger won the Cup with 123,033 points, but in 2009 won it with 4,000. Neither number really means anything, because it's just an assigned number, which makes it really hard to get into it.
Lastly, the FedEx Cup lacks any historical significance or any true meaning other than being a contrived marketing gimick. Where as the Major championships have been played for decades, and started with a more specific purpose, the FedEx Cup seems to only exist to emulate NASCAR and allow for marketing revenue. The good news is that time will cure this problem, and the Cup will eventually gain a reputation. The bad news for the fans is that it will take twenty years to accomplish this.
Now the question is what can be done to fix these problems? I've heard so many solutions, I'm not sure what to think. Some have suggested that the cut line in each tournament simply eliminate those players from the playoffs and then having the winner of the final tournament, win the FedEx Cup. Another idea is to have the final tournament use match play to decide the season's winner. Myself, I enjoy the cut throat nature of the playoffs in other sports and would like to see the same thing applied to golf. What form that should take exactly, I really don't know. I do know however, that until something is changed, we'll be stuck watching (or not watching in my case) four tournaments that nobody really cares about.
- TheRev
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