For starters, the TOUR Championship is nowhere near the most prestigious tournament of the year, behind not only the four major championships but also run of the mill PGA Tour events such as the Player's Championship. To make things worse, it is also being overshadowed by next week's event, which isn't run by the PGA Tour and doesn't count towards any standings, the Ryder Cup. Imagine the World Series being overshadowed by the World Baseball Classic, and you'll understand the TOUR Championship's pain. This week's tournament doesn't even really create any more buzz than the other FedEx Cup tournaments. You'd think the Tour would be putting a little more emphasis on the final over say...the Barclay's, but then again, this is the same organization that put a week of rest in between its' last two events. Nothing kills momentum in golf drama like a week off for viewers to engross themselves a little deeper into the NFL and forget about the PG-what's-it Tour.
Next up is the confusion surrounding who can win and who can't win. Technically, after the points have been reset, anybody in the field today can win. However, that's what people say about the Super Bowl at the beginning of each season, and I give you the Detroit Lions. Bo Van Pelt is the 30th place finisher and will have 205 points heading into the TOUR Championship. The only way Van Pelt can win, is if the field finishes in reverse order of the current standing. First would have to finish last, second would finish second last, and so on, all the way down the list. Don't put it all on Van Pelt, is what I'm getting at here. Adding to the confusion is the formulas thrown around to calculate who can win. "Well, if Kuchar finishes higher than sixth, and Paul Casey fails to finish in the top 17, than Kuchar wins; unless Stricker comes in tied for seventh, and Hoffman isn't one of the guys he's tied with." Perfect...and if you drive 88 MPH through downtown Hill Valley at precisely 10:04 PM on November 12, 1955, you can travel through time. Tell you what, let me know who won on Monday.
Now it isn't all the PGA Tour's fault, let's look at the leaderboard this tournament has. Matt Kuchar, Charley Hoffman, Steve Stricker and Paul Casey. Those are the favorites. To put it another way, that's the Columbus Blue Jackets, Nashville Predators, Phoenix Coyotes, Atlanta Thrashers and Florida Panthers competing for the Stanley Cup. Okay, that's not fair, people have heard of Dustin Johnson because of his Major let downs. Take out the Coyotes and we'll make him the Los Angeles Kings. Imagine the excitement that would surround the Stanley Cup with those five teams. Even Canadians wouldn't be tuning in. Of course there isn't really anything the PGA Tour can do about this; those are the players who qualified. Perhaps next year we'll see Tim Finchem standing on the sidelines, waving his fist Arsenio Hall-style to encourage the game's bigger names.
Of course the biggest problem the TOUR Championship is facing this year, which I haven't mentioned yet, is the 800-pound elephant in the room. Or rather the 800-mistress Tiger in the room. For the first time since he turned professional, the "World's Number One" did not qualify for the TOUR Championship. After a year of near misses (Elin's wedge to his head) and medical problems (wontus finishus firstus, which causes neck pains and forces withdrawal...from the tournament that is), Tiger will be sitting on the sidelines watching the game's best players duke it out for less than a month's pay. Tiger's absence from the event has obvious consequences. Not only will fewer people be watching on TV, but the event is receiving less media coverage than usual. With Tiger in the field, it would likely be one of the top stories on SportsCenter, or on the first few pages of the sports section in the paper. Now it might not even be mentioned on some stations, and the results will likely find themselves in a small column in the bottom corner of the "Scoreboard" page in the newspaper. That's the same page that people, who for some reason don't have a computer or the Internet, go to to see who's leading the standings of their favorite league. For better or for worse, Tiger is what drives the PGA Tour, and without him, any event suffers. This one just happens to have a couple of other strikes against it as well.
While the Canadian golf season draws to a close, it is a shame that for all intents and purposes, the PGA Tour season has already done so. There isn't another real tournament until April. But luckily, this is perhaps the busiest time of the year in sports, with hockey starting up, football in full swing, and playoff baseball around the corner. Golf simply can't compete with those powerhouses, especially without the game's biggest star. So, if you're like me and you don't plan on watching the TOUR Championship this weekend and are in need of some alternative programming while the golf is on, I'll offer you football on Sunday, and for Saturday, there's an episode of Matlock airing on 205. It's the one where Matlock wears a grey suit and successfully defends his client from a murder charge while getting one of the witnesses to confess, on the stand!
-TheRev
twitter.com/TheRevBW
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