Opinion & Analysis
Why isn’t anybody questioning the Race To Dubai system?
A month ago, Rory McIlroy won the European Tour’s Race to Dubai—a year-long points system ending with a four-event extravaganza where the point values are extra charged. The Northern Irishman’s triumph here was hardly surprising, with his monstrous season that included victories in four of the most significant events counted by the circuit.
But then consider that McIlroy decided to break from golf in mid-October, mere weeks before the beginning of the four-event finale (known as the Final Series). The 25-year-old skipped the first three events of this supposedly lavish quartet closing to the European Tour season, and while he did compete in the fourth and final tournament, he had already clinched the Race to Dubai crown prior to teeing off.
All in all, McIlroy won his second Race to Dubai title in three years before hitting a single shot in the Final Series.
Does that sound crazy?
One would suppose that question might garner varying answers from a wide range of parties—with an outcome objectively radical like this, fierce polarization among the golf faithful would just be an assumption. But so far in the aftermath of McIlroy’s effortless victory, the voices have been nearly unanimous: The 25-year-old deserved to win this way.
Huh?
Where’s the outrage golf fans can unleash over the tiniest detail—a ball drifting ever so slightly from its previous position, a drop a mere two yards from its start point? Isn’t this the same group that constantly derides the FedEx Cup—the same type of four-tournament system on the other side of the Atlantic?
The Final Series is meant to be a punctuation to the European Tour season, a strong, dramatic closing to a year-round campaign. Yet, praising McIlroy’s method, one could easily argue, endorses a very alternate reality—that these four weeks are nothing more than a blip in the 12-month tournament calendar.
And it has been praised. Some remain too apathetic to form an opinion on the matter, but several players and media have lauded the current points breakdown. Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia each offered a firm approval of McIlroy’s premature triumph. Others have suggested it would be “in rather poor taste” for anybody else to claim the Race to Dubai. And most who’ve posed the question of whether the current system is adequate did so only to affirm their conviction behind the status quo.
One of the few that gave an honest thought to this question was the Daily Mail’s Derek Lawrenson, who felt the current setup paved the way to an anemic finish to the European Tour calendar.
It’s not necessary for all of us to follow in Lawrenson’s path, but systems can improve with a healthy dose of questioning. In the face of the champion competing in just one of the four über-important year-end events—a controversy on a platter, really—why is the Race to Dubai being shielded from practically any criticism?
The initial years of the FedEx Cup fell victim to harsh words from all sorts when victors like Vijay Singh were confirmed before the Tour Championship. The PGA Tour brass adjusted and transformed the enterprise into an affair that ensured no winner would be awarded before the final event or that the closing tournament would be an afterthought in determining the champion.
The FedEx Cup Playoffs remain imperfect, and I did refer to it as stale in the aftermath of Billy Horschel’s 2014 double (the PGA Tour announced last week that it was reducing the amount of points in the four playoff events, a change probably not implemented because of what I wrote, but you can’t prove that). Yet, the system is markedly superior to its earlier iterations, something that likely wouldn’t have occurred without a large peppering of public outrage.
The Race to Dubai should be able to evolve from such a constructive process, if there are willing actors. They were certainly willing a year ago when players complained about competing in a minimum of two of the first three Final Series tournaments in order to be eligible for the last event, critiques that convinced the European Tour to remove this clause altogether.
One may surmise that this change weakened the Race to Dubai—although I would disagree, on grounds that the points system, not eligibility, was the force driving the absentee-winner in McIlroy—but it proves that willing actors are present in advocating tweaks to this system. And constantly opening it up to these participants tends to produce positive results in the long run.
The Race to Dubai needs to continue discussion on internal events that might be in any way troublesome in order to ensure the best possible system is being created. The finish to the 2014 season and what it says about the present system certainly deserves to be one of these talking points.
Yes, the vast majority of voices that have spoken here failed to promote tweaks to the four-event finale, but that feels disingenuous. This is a picky sport, one where fans, players and media are prone to argue over any perceived issue. And those hotly debated early FedEx Cups were far less radical in their main point of argumentation (a lack of drama) than this year’s Race to Dubai—where we pretty much knew throughout that McIlroy would eventually clinch.
Simply, I don’t trust that the panel of golf is so one-sided on this issue. There’s a dissenting voice to the Race to Dubai 2014 that has just not manifested itself much yet.
I’m not sure why the other side has not voiced its opinion strongly as of this moment. Maybe they’re afraid to speak out in case it’s misconstrued as an attack on McIlroy’s season (which, while quite stellar, isn’t an all-time great season as quotes from other players might have you believe). Maybe kvetching about the FedEx Cup has burned everybody out. Maybe McIlroy’s accomplishment came at a time when too few protestors were paying attention or cared enough to weigh in.
Whatever the case, a productive two-way discussion needs to take place on the Race to Dubai. An event as radical as 2014’s can’t sit by untouched; these are the results that must be interrogated in order to gauge whether the system is sound.
Who knows, maybe at the end of this conversing, the current system is deemed worthy. But at least in this instance, it is put through an honest test of healthy questioning following an event that could be construed as alarming.
Systems take a number of years to incorporate an adequate model. In light of McIlroy’s easy win, the Race to Dubai should be subjected to that process.
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The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.
TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.
Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.
However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.
Past Winners at TPC Louisiana
- 2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
- 2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
- 2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
- 2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
- 2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
- 2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)
2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks
Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)
Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.
This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.
McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.
Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)
Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.
Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.
Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)
Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.
NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.
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After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.
For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.
The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.
The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.
*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*
Past Winners at LIV Adelaide
- 2023: Talor Gooch (-19)
Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami
Green in Regulation
- Richard Bland
- Jon Rahm
- Paul Casey
Fairways Hit
- Abraham Ancer
- Graeme McDowell
- Henrik Stenson
Driving Distance
- Bryson DeChambeau
- Joaquin Niemann
- Dean Burmester
Putting
- Cameron Smith
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Matt Jones
2024 LIV Adelaide Picks
Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)
When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.
At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.
The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.
Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)
Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.
In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.
For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.
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Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.
Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.
But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.
To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.
Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.
If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.
In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.
Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.
While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.
So, what about grooves and face texture?
Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.
Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.
But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?
The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.
So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.
And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.
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Mat
Jan 21, 2015 at 4:57 pm
There’s nothing wrong with the system in its points aggregation. That can be adjusted from here to next week. What needs to happen is the format needs to be more head-to-head.
4 weeks, like this:
Top 125 FedEx / R2D get into a field.
Week 1: Most players compete. An average of your seed and your position after the tournament determine total. 75+ continue. This makes Top 10 optional to play. No Friday cuts
Week 2: Most players compete. All Majors winners advance, along with Tournament Top 50+. Major winners are optional. No Friday cuts.
Week 3: Play to get down to a field of 32. 4 Major winners guaranteed 1 seed, but no one else.
Week 4: 5 rounds of match play, starting Thursday. Play twice Saturday, and Sunday title is 36 holes.
Christopher
Jan 20, 2015 at 2:43 pm
“Why isn’t anybody questioning the Race To Dubai system?”
Why write an article about a question’s no-one’s asking! If people aren’t up in arms about the winner, then they’re probably worthwhile winners, with a worthwhile system. We do occasionally get things right on the European Tour! The Play-Offs are only as interesting as the top players in-form, Rory was rewarded for his fantastic year and that’s what counts.
Sargio_Gercia
Dec 31, 2014 at 4:20 am
Ryder Cup. You’re welcome America!
Steve H
Dec 30, 2014 at 1:34 pm
The fact remains, there are only 5 or 6 events that truly matter in Professional Golf – The Masters, US & British Opens, PGA, Ryder Cup and maybe The Players. These events are golf’s equivalent to the Super Bowl, World Series etc. These playoff systems on both tours are just an attempt to keep the best players playing later in the year and hopefully get some eye balls to watch the tournaments that are really meaingless.
Since these playoffs will stick around, my suggestion, is the final tournament be a match play event, making the final round as close to a Game 7 as you can get in golf. Have the venue on the west coast, show it in prime time, but rather than finishing on a sunday, have the final round on a tues or weds. night and avoid all TV conflict with the NFL.
Knobbywood
Jan 3, 2015 at 4:29 pm
So the final day will only be two players? How many people do you think will tune in to watch Kevin Na and Ben Crane scrap it out for five and a half hours for the fedex cup? That’s an extreme example but you get my point and the the PGA tour won’t risk that happening… Although as a fan of the game of golf I would love it to be match play, just don’t see it happening
Greg V
Dec 29, 2014 at 3:25 pm
I, for one, think that the Fed-X cup has it wrong, and particularly the outlandish prize for winning a 4 week play-off. The most important tournaments are the majors, and of those, the most important are the Open Championship and the US Open.
Here is my “fix”: the major champions don’t play the first event of the playoffs, but get seeded into the second playoff event receiving the same number of points that are awarded to the first playoff event winner.
Then they play from there.
And they should play for something much more modest than the $10 Mil.
Joseph
Dec 29, 2014 at 6:25 pm
Not a bad idea. What about a race for the top 16 spots and then match play fom there? Major winners get auto bids. That leaves 12 spots up for grabs. Gotta do something to spice it up a bit.
JHI
Dec 31, 2014 at 2:40 am
No.
Tony
Dec 29, 2014 at 6:41 am
He won 2 majors and a WGC. if he’s not the player of the year then who is?
I don’t like the FedEx system. Couple years ago Rory won 2 of the 4 tournaments and top 10 in final tournament yet he didn’t win. How is that fair?
Golf is different to basketball, baseball and football, it’s not one team against another until they get knocked out each round. Trying to replicate those sports doesn’t really work. Someone could win all 4 majors and be #1 coming into the final tournament but not win, bizarre.
Matthew Bacon
Dec 28, 2014 at 7:41 pm
No one cares about the European Tour
Rich
Dec 29, 2014 at 9:36 am
Perhaps you should. It’s where all the players that thrashed the USA in the Ryder cup this year play a lot of their golf throughout the season.
JHI
Dec 31, 2014 at 2:40 am
Rich,
Ha-ha! Nice one!
Knobbywood
Jan 3, 2015 at 4:33 pm
Check again there rich most of those guys are PGA tour players
Rich
Jan 5, 2015 at 5:00 am
Knobby, think you better check again mate. They have to play a certain amount of events on the European Tour to be members of the European Tour or they can’t play Ryder Cup. They might be members of the PGA tour but by playing Ryder Cup, they are European Tour players. It’s as simple as that.
Rusty Putter
Dec 28, 2014 at 10:41 am
How many golfers are there in Dubai?
12?
golfing
Dec 28, 2014 at 9:14 am
They can make it to suit the show so we can be more interested and the
sponsors get more out for their money.
This is simple, points as it is now, but with a happy ending… a race
between the 4 best over 18 holes to lift the money…on Sunday at Dubai.
golfing
Dec 28, 2014 at 9:18 am
Or a race at 2 for 36 holes, or 4 semi final 36 holes, and 2 at final 36 holes, but the show is only over when the fat lady stops to sing.
Ronald Montesano
Dec 28, 2014 at 8:16 am
Rory McIlroy won the PGA Championship of Europe and the USA in 2014. He won the Open/British Open and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. He was also runner-up in three events and averaged a bit more than 12th place in all events played. If future champs of the RTD have similar seasons before the playoffs, they deserve to win the event.
It’s proper to have one series that rewards an electric finish, running fairly parallel to another that rewards season-long play. If sponsors ever feel differently, we’ll see changes.
No big
Dec 28, 2014 at 3:27 am
What’s the big deal? The rules were set for points-won during the season, and the guy who gained the most points wins – like in the English Premier League or any other intelligently set, point-system league competition.
Each player is responsible for trying to get as many points as possible to win it at the end.
No silly divided-division play-off wild-card silliness like we see in America.
And why don’t any teams in professional sports in America get relegated? Where’s the camaraderie in sticking together as a team? You win as a team, you lose as a team, therefore if you play poor and are the bottom, you should get relegated. Oh but wait.. that’s right! In America, the individual is more important, therefore the team never goes down, the players are never together and are not part of a team! No wonder you guys keep losing the Ryder Cup as well.
Jeff
Dec 27, 2014 at 9:03 pm
The reason the same people the deride the Fed-Ex Cup that like the European system is the Fed ex cup feels gimicky. In most fans mind, it’s hard to award any golfer but Rory a season long award. The race to Dubai standings always seem more in line with the actual quality of a players season, where who knows when and why the fed ex cup points change.
Nick
Dec 27, 2014 at 6:25 pm
It is very simple to me: The Race to Dubai is more in line with traditional European scoring systems such as the Premier League which reward year-long consistency, whereas the Fedex Cup promotes a more American system of peaking at the right time such as the NFL, MLB, NHL and NCAA Tournament Playoffs.
In Europe, they have always rewarded consistency over an entire season, whereas here in America we become affixed to the “playoffs” as almost a marketing scheme to make it more exciting towards the end. It is neither here nor there and I am CERTAINLY not bashing America, but I expected each governing body to behave in this way given their respective cultures – the Euro tour more resembling the BPL and the Fedex Cup more resembling our playoff system here. Nobody complains because that is what they are used to. Golf may be “a little bit different” than most sports, but it has become clear that each of the governing bodies wants to move golf in a more stereotypical-to-culture direction.
No big
Dec 28, 2014 at 3:29 am
It’s because of the hype for TV ratings geared by marketing for commercial minutes sponsored by the very manufacturers who put up the money to broadcast the show and also to provide the goods being bought to fuel the economy, etc etc, yada yada yada what a load of bull
Rich
Dec 27, 2014 at 5:38 pm
Hang on a second. Golfwrx shows little or no interest in the European Tour during the whole season and yet publishes an article that is critical of how the European Tour operates the Race to Dubai? Not everyone wants to do the same as the USA. The Fedex cup system is dumb. Billy Horshel had a great play off series but he won because he had a good “postseason”. He was not even close to the best player for the whole year. McIlroy was the best player on the European Tour by a mile. How is this not the right result? Stick to what you know best Golfwrx and that’s golf in the USA. Stay out of European golf. You don’t know anything about golf in Europe or on the European Tour and it’s blindingly obvious here with this article.
Bogus
Dec 27, 2014 at 7:13 pm
You are spot on my friend! Only sticking their noses in when negative words are to be throw against the Euro’s or their tour
No big
Dec 28, 2014 at 3:32 am
Exactly, Rich!
Golfwrx also ignores the Champions Tour, the LPGA, the Asian Tour, the Australasia Tour, the ELT, as well as all the other “foreign” developmental tours as well the kids’ tours around the globe.
And it calls itself a golf website. But then again it’s a part of GolfDigest, so what do you expect!
Ronald Montesano
Dec 28, 2014 at 8:02 am
“But then again it’s a part of GolfDigest, so what do you expect!”
Inaccurate, No big.
Ponjo
Dec 28, 2014 at 6:54 am
+1
Gerard
Dec 28, 2014 at 7:32 am
Rich goes bang! Spot on mate, could not agree more. Seems to be the American way or the highway a little bit doesn’t it.
Rich
Dec 28, 2014 at 8:29 am
Yes it would seem so Gerard but it’s not surprising…………..
Knobbywood
Jan 4, 2015 at 8:47 am
I think it’s funny how all the euros come rushing in to defend their precious euro tour as if it were their baby… All this geographic loyalty is akin to gangs disagreeing for no other reason than they grew up on different side of the city… No valid arguments folks grow up… Most of your European Ryder cup players play on the PGA tour most of the time anyway…
Derehk
Dec 27, 2014 at 4:54 pm
Because its a season long race to Dubai and not a playoff.
Prime21
Dec 27, 2014 at 3:17 pm
Because it is The European Tour. The current set-up does not allow players who are playing both tours to make each event in the Race to Dubai. If they gave them an ultimatum to play or be disqualified from the event, they would lose their top draws, such as Rory, and their attendance and television numbers would suffer as a result. In the end, I would say they are doing exactly what they should be doing, considering the alternatives. Unfortunately this means that some seasons will have uneventful “races”, much like the early years of the FedEx Cup. If they have to choose between having Rory or Justin for 1 event or none, they are going to take 1 every time.
Mikko U
Dec 27, 2014 at 3:10 pm
I don’t really understand this fixation with playoffs or season finals. Why can’t (or shouldn’t) the player who has had the best season from the first tournament to the last win? If a football club secures the championship with four rounds to go, they’ve either been dominant or the others just haven’t showed up to play. Why should someone who was in good form in April lose to someone who was in good form in September?
Of course I understand that different tournaments have different sponsors and prize funds, the bigger the purse the more attractive and difficult the tournament is to win. Thus bigger tournaments should count for more than a Mickey Mouse tournament played alongside a major.
I don’t mind the Race to Dubai Finals or the FedEx Finals with huge purses but I’d hate to see a guy come from nowhere to top the money list at the end just for going on a hot streak for a couple of weeks. While it might not be as exciting to see a player securing the top spot over 20+ tournaments than in the last ones, I also think the big finals can undermine the work put in in the previous ten months.
No big
Dec 28, 2014 at 3:33 am
Because, Mikko, from the Yank perspective, they don’t understand a major sport that doesn’t have a fake play-off system to really not see who’s actually the best of the season, but the best of the moment to help them sell more stuff on TV.
Knall
Jan 4, 2015 at 3:09 am
Lol thats a great summary of most american sports from a euro perspective. They probably find our league systems just as stupid though.
WhoNeedsFairways
Dec 27, 2014 at 2:45 pm
If the Race to Dubai is supposed to be the culmination of an entire season then how can you not expect McIlroy not to win it? Regardless of his participation in the last 4 events. Look at it from a more holistic perspective… If you look back on this season several years from now, would it seem odd that the person who won two majors in a single year also won the season-long trophy? Of course not… It makes perfect sense. But unfortunately for the powers that be it doesn’t fit in with their plans here and now to manufacture a thrilling playoff… Golf has no room for playoffs… Both models are stupid…
Steve
Dec 27, 2014 at 5:35 pm
That’s not true. Golf has plenty of room for playoffs, they just have to find the right way to do them. The alternative is only having 4 events a year that are actually important. Playoffs at least have the potential to add some more excitement.
WhoNeedsFairways
Dec 27, 2014 at 6:44 pm
Have to respectfully disagree. there are plenty of other tournaments outside of the 4 majors that are important and add excitement… Players, Bay Hill, all the WGC events, BMW match play, Phoenix. There’s plenty of excitement… Just not enough for them to make golf a 12-month sport. And IMO, they shouldn’t try to .,,
Joseph
Dec 27, 2014 at 2:10 pm
You can throw the FedEx Cup into the same discussion. Professional golf has been and will continue to be all about the majors. Other than someone becoming ridiculously rich by winning 10 M, I just don’t care a whole lot.
Largechris
Dec 27, 2014 at 2:07 pm
In previous years the race to dubai has been a good competition, Stensons win was fantastic in 2013.
Not much the tour could or should do about it when a player has a season like McIroys. That’s the nature of sport, sometimes you get anti climaxes. Anything else is WWE.
Johnny
Dec 27, 2014 at 1:56 pm
To piggy back what Dan said, how many people really care? The correct answer is very, very few. If that many.
Tony
Dec 29, 2014 at 6:33 am
Yes, well said. USA is the centre of the universe, everyone else is inferior, irrelevant and any time spent talking about matters outside the USA is a waste.
Jay
Dec 27, 2014 at 1:51 pm
He dominated the regular season in such a way that the “final series” was irrelevant.
Jon
Dec 27, 2014 at 1:50 pm
It seems to me that the rest of the field needs to do a better job of winning. It’s not like Rory was handed a bunch of wins for free. It was a fair win and no welfare involved. Those who complain should work harder if they want to win the Race to Dubai. It is impossible to have a tournament championship where everybody will be satisfied and given a winners trophy.
Dan
Dec 27, 2014 at 1:47 pm
Because nobody cares about the race to Dubai
Knall
Dec 27, 2014 at 2:16 pm
Pretty typical american answer…
Mark
Dec 27, 2014 at 2:23 pm
You are both correct!
Mikko U
Dec 27, 2014 at 3:13 pm
No, only the first reply is correct.
Forsbrand
Dec 27, 2014 at 4:18 pm
I am European and both the Fedex and Race to Dubai are both meaningless. May as well have a seven club challenge over four rounds.
Steve
Dec 27, 2014 at 3:03 pm
Definitely this