Is it just me or have I heard next to nothing about the Playoffs starting this week since Eldrick is benched for it? Its almost weird...is anyone surprised by the fact that the playoffs are already upon us?

Does anyone care, or is the allure lost because of Tiger's absence? Personally, for me, being that I love watching golf, I think its more exciting to have him NOT in the field because my gut feeling is the guy would be a lock to win the thing again.

So what do you think will happen this year? Who will win the cup? I can tell you it probably won't be Phil. And how weird is it that the Ryder Cup is stuck in between the playoffs, a week before the Championship? That has to be a real grind for America's best, playing every week, trying to win the Ryder Cup, and then competing again the next week for the $10 Mil. I think AK will make some noise in the FedEx Cup. I don't think Paddy will play a real big part either, but I could be wrong. I look to Snedeker and Sabbatini to do well too.

I didn't care last year when Tiger was in it. Don't care this year either. If Anthony Kim wins, then I might care, but otherwise it really doesn't matter to me.

Paddy.

The FEDEX Cup would be so much better if the pros played for their own money.

How about if every week 10% of all players winnings went into a pool and after the qualifying period the eligible 144 played for it?? Multi-Millionaires winning millions of dollars doesnt have much appeal to many people i know, ala Skins Games. So why not spice it up with the pro's money instead??

On a different note, if Tiger still eligble for a payout as per his points at the end of the FEDEX Cup?? He doesnt need it but he has earned those points with great play and deserves to be paid for them again like everyone else.

i'm feeling some southern hemisphere success with scott or ogilvy or immelman doing well. the only way i will find it interesting is if someone i like can win it. if phil finishes 3rd four times and wins it, wow, it could not get any worse than that.

i think sergio has a chance as well.

I'm interested, but I think its more becasue I have played Ridgewood a few times and am interested to see what the pro's do there, particularly on the 291 par 4 hole thats playing as the 5th hole in the tournament. Elevated green about the size of someones living room guarded by nasty bunkers. Might see some two's there, with guys going for the green, but will definately see some big numbers too.

If the tournament wasn't being held there, it definately wouldn't be must see viewing for me.

I didn't give a crap about Finchim's Fantasy Cup last year. Don't care about it this year. It was supposed to generate all this excitement and interest in golf - be like the playoffs in other pro sports.

Instead, it appears to most to be just a big, ugly piece of marketing fluff governed by ridiculously arcane rules. I don't think the pros even care that much about it - Tiger (very pointedly) didn't kiss the Cup last year. Despite the money, I'll bet if you gave most pros the choice between winning "the FedEx Cup", and winning one of the majors, most would pick winning a major as being far more important.

As for fans? Most of the casual golfers I played with during last year's were vaguely aware it was going on ... but were confused and clueless about who was actually "winning" (and why you could actually skip one the the four tournaments of a "playoff" and still win it).

Even here on GRX ... home of probably the largest number of golf fanatics per capita ... during every major there will be threads galore starting a week or two prior to the event, a ten page thread during the tourney, and even a few afterwards digesting what happened.

The FedEx Cup? It is starting this week, and we have this thread (not about the Cup, but about why no one seems to care about the Cup). However there's already been a number of Ryder Cup threads (that doesn't even start for awhile yet).

It appears as though Finchim failed. Among casual fans, and even intense fans, what matters during a season is the majors, and the Ryder (and/or President's) Cup. The FedEx Cup is a joke.

I'll certainly watch - not because I care who wins the whole thing, but simply because I'll watch PGA golf whenever I can.

The whole thing would be more interesting if the playoff system determined something... like Player of the Year + Ryder Cup Team Membership.

But all it seems to be is another way of looking at standings for the purpose of giving out an annuity- a parachute in case one of these millionairs blows all his money and still has 30 years to live.

At least Major League Baseball awarded World Series home field advantage to the All Star Game winner. Before that, the All Star game was useless.

I think part of the problem in golf is that everything is geared around money- how many tournaments require a money list ranking to play?

But I will say this- I like all the FedEx commercials!

Well they might have just converted them to points through some sort of calculation, would that make you feel better? The concept would still be the same, but instead of rankings on the money list, they would be points rankings. So it's just semantics really, leave out the dollar signs and think of em as points.
You have to have a ranking in sports, in golf the $ is the measurement. Someone decided it should be like that instead of points ... so be it. But i'm repeating myself, it's just a measurement like in every other sport. The fact that's it's an individual achievement is probably important in this case.

The FedEx cup is a whole other thing though ... it is utter crap. I ranted about it before during The Open, because players could score points in 2 different tournaments which were played parallel. The Bank championship of course had a weaker field than The Open, but it didn't reflect much in FedEx cup points. So the system's basics are flawed.
The playoff event itself is nothing more than marketing. And the format proved to be crap last year when players weren't playing all 3 tourneys and still were eligible to win. So in a sense this is indeed again all about the money, both for the players who can earn some more and for the Tour trough advertising and TV rights and etc.

FedEx cup is terrible. Terrible creative design and execution. How can someone win without actually winning a tournament? The whole point of playoffs is to have a final match/tournament where the winner of the final is the winner of the playoffs. Here's a much better format tweak based on their system-

4 week playoff, players in the top 15 in points can take a bye in either week one or two if they choose, outside of top 15 they must play.

144 players first tourney
96 players second tourney
64 players third tourney

First 3 tourneys are stroke play. I would up the points in the playoff tournaments as well. Make the players in the top 5 in points need to at least make a cut or two to make the top 32. The current system the top 3 players don't even need to score points at all and they would still make the finals. It's not really a playoff if they don't need to at least play O.K. to make the final tourney.

Top 32 play a stroke/match play championship

Stroke play the first two days, best players should make it to the weekend ala Tiger (if he were not hurt) Phil, etc. Makes for a very exciting final.

Top 8 players after the first two strokeplay days (playoff for ties for the 8th spot) make it to the weekend matchplay, seeding based on total score the first two days. Other seeding ties go to the player with the higher point total.

Quarters and Semis 18 hole matchplay on Saturday

36 hole final on Sunday for the 10 million dollar Championship!!! Can you imagine it coming down to the last couple holes for multi millions? Exciting!!!

I think for a lot of people the FedEx Cup hasn't lived up to the ceaseles hype of last year.

Certainly Woods' absence is a blow for the lure of the event, but that aside there is still the lingering confusion of the format and scoring methodology; the smoke and mirrors job that FedEx and the PGA Tour pulled over the prize fund (which was masterpiece of poor publicity - does anyone know how much the winner actually gets, and when it's paid?) and the fact that it's all a bit of a rush job at the end of the season with some players skipping part of it rather than emulating a Playoffs-type competition as was the intention.

I applaud any event or series of events that bring the best players in the world together in competition - but for me the WGC events are head and shoulders better and do the job far more effectively than the FedEx Cup did. A variety of venues (albeit not so much lately) and some variety in the format. Yes, we got the expected FedEx winner last year and there was some good golf on display, but for me the whole thing is just a continuation of golf in America with a bigger (and more convoluted) prize fund.

If there's to be a marquee finish to the season, I'd rather see some sort of event that has a worldwide stable of venues and encompasses all the major tours. Dare I say it, as heralded as the Race To Dubai thing is on the European Tour, I can't see it being a lot different from the FedEx Cup if I'm honest. A chance for already very rich golfers to get even richer.

Well, I think it's a little over hyped, but I like the fact that I get to watch 4 consecutive tournaments with the best golfers in the world. The alternative is that we get to watch these tournaments without many (if not most) of the top players on tour.

Which do you prefer?

I still think its crazy to run this and the Ryder Cup in the middle of it. I think it will just cut down the number of good Euros to compete in the Fedex Cup or at least be willing to try because they want to win the Ryder Cup. The American side will either be burnt out or not care about the FedEx stuff either. I think there seems to be a conflict of interest or a huge botch in planning the end of the season. Good Job, Finchie!

I will get interested if one of the guys from 100-144 wins that first tournament. The only thing that would really get me interested is if one of the "unknowns" made a push and beat the game's better players (other than Tiger). It's a rich people's tour and those guys are the ones who would really care about an extra $10million. Not that the other guys don't want it, but they already have enough money as evidenced by the Gulfstreams they take from event to event.

I get more interested in the Fall Series. Fun to watch guys grind it out trying to keep their job. For whatever reason, that interests me more than anything outside of the majors.

None, because it's not a solution to the problem, it's dealing with it as it is.
We all love great tournaments with strong fields on pristine courses, but there are plenty of those on tour already. The idea of the playoff format is ... playoffs, not simply more of the same under a different name.

A system like AcesAZ proposed is a lot more like it, especially the top 32 matchplay. It would be awesome if it was a global concept, but it's the PGA Tour who organizes it, not the euro, asian or any other tour. The WGC events do fill that gap to an extent.

I'd love to see 4 playoff events (more or less like AcesAZ proposed) at the end of the season where the first tournament would be played with the top 25 players from the major tours around the world. Every event played on a different continent, yearly rotation of which event played on what continent.

As long as Tiger reins he will probably have a huge chance of winning it as it stands right now. Give the man 4 events and he will, with almost statistical certainty, win 2 of em unless he's on a dry streak (17 tournaments/year average with 6,8 wins per year average).

A weird thing that could happen this year is that Player A wins the Tour Championship event but Player B wins the Fed Ex cup. The trophy presentation would be awkward.

I had the same idea but slightly different. First, all points should be eliminated once the regular season ends. NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA don't carry their records into the playoffs, points should not be either. MLB, NHL and NBA don't have playoff bye weeks, but the NFL does, so either eliminate bye weeks and make them play because it should be enough that you made it to the playoffs or give the top 15-30 a bye in the first week(not in any other week) and let the other 114 battle it out for 66 spots in the next week, second week, if its possible completely eliminate the cut, make it 96 golfers on a 4 day grind for 64 spots, third week should be same as second, 4 day grind to get to the tour championship, at the Tour Championship, I would copy the women's ADT Championship format. Thursday and Friday, the best 16 make it to the the weekend(playoff any ties must be 16), wipe the scores clean and stroke play shoot out on Saturday to get the group down to eight and on Sunday wipe the cards clean again and have an 8-man shootout to decide who is the true Fedex cup champion.

Tiger or not...it is much more exciting then if there were no playoff and this weekend was just another tournament. I would not have watched a minute if there was not playoff. It will get better quality players on a weekly basis for the next 4 weeks, that can only be good.

Well, the first tournament seemed pretty exciting!

Couple of things I can chip in:



Sure, he'll get the money corresponding to his finish in the FedEx Cup standings. He'll stay at 100,000 points. We'll see how much milk money that'll earn him.




Actually any opposite field events give out 50% of the points regular events do. WGC events and majors even have more points still.
The Open: 4950 points to the winner, US Bank Ch. 2250 points to the winner.



First of all, yes, MLB,NBA and NHL do not take over any achievements into the playoffs...or do they? Well, the best playoff team gets to play the worst, so there is an incentive to play well in the regular season, and therefore the regular season standings do factor into the playoffs.
The Bye-idea being only for the first tourney does have merit, but it would probably wreak havoc with the first event's sponsor...

I actually would favor the strokeplay/matchplay combo, but in the current state with the winner of the TOUR championship not being the FedEx champion, this doesn't make sense. The Race to Dubai being only one event could however employ that.

Finchim's got a serious problem. Massive hype last year. Endless ads this year. Supposed to create a huge buzz. But I notice that here - a board full of total fanatics - there was only one or two threads about the Barclay's ... the "Official 2008 Barclay's Tournament Comment Thread" got 6 posts. None on the weekend (despite a rather stunning finish).

Ordinary guys (i.e., weekenders)? Well, I walked on to a local course as a single Sunday (last minute decision). Got put with three guys that play occasionally, and apparently usually don't watch golf that much (but do watch the majors). They were vaguely aware that there was a tournament this weekend, but none of them knew the FedEx Cup started.

The thing is completely irrelevant.

Good post.

If I didn't have a couple of buddies struggling to get from one event to the next, I wouldn't care much either. Since both need to have big weeks in Boston to get to the next round, I may not pay attention at all by next week. Add to it that college football starts Thursday and golf really moves to the back-burner for many people who watch sports on TV.

The PGA may have maxed out it's ability to get sponsors with this deal. I have a feeling that 40 years ago, the answer to an odd trivia question will be "can you name the two winners of the Fed Ex Cup?". I don't know how long the Fed-Ex contract is, but I'd imagine that they are in major renogtiation mode at this point. No way they are getting enough bang for their buck, particularly when some of their biggest clients are in major cut-back mode.

If all the banks stop sponsoring events (which could happen), where does the PGA go next? They'll have to go back to the way things were 10 years ago in order to find enough sponsors. Will Finchem be able to do that? The next couple of years could be pretty interesting for the tour.

I hate to say it, but even die hard golf fans I know aren't even watching golf these days. I only tuned in when I saw there was a playoff. The mini, non-scientific survey of my golf buddies revealed that they really don't care. Seems they'd rather go play than watch it.

Can't say I blame them.

Why? I still don't understand why...

Is it because Tiger is not there and they want to watch Tiger? That would be a reason.

But if that is not the reason, I still don't understand why watching this tournament was any different from any other tournament.

No one has been able to explain that yet... all I've seen are some veiled reasons why Tim Finchem's playoff system doesn't work and that he is full of himself, and people's suggestions that they have a better playoff points system.

All of they players that I saw interviewed this past weekend seemed to speak positively of the whole experience.

I'll try to answer you ... I think there are several reasons. Certainly Tiger's absence is one of them (like him or not, he does singlehandedly cause a measurable increase in tournament viewership and attendance).

But I think another (strong) reason is that golf is a game of traditions (far more so than many sports). Traditionally, the golf season has simply ended after the majors were done with (so far as most fans were concerned). Late August and September (in the US, anyway) are associated with the baseball penant race, and the start of football season. With the bi-annual exception of the Ryder Cup (that is just 4 days, not four weeks), a lot of the best pros didn't even play after the last major - except to satisfy personal or contractual obligations.

Finchim tried to change this, and extend the season (i.e., revenues) ... but you can't just "decide" to create a new tradition out of nowhere, and expect everyone to just buy it (even if you do plow hundreds of thousands into marketing it).

Another large problem (IMO) is that the logic just doesn't make sense. He's trying to apply a concept from team sports to an individual sport. He wanted to create this playoff system, a sort of World Series, or Super Bowl, of Golf. But both the World Series and Super Bowl came about as part of a sort of natural evolution. There is the NFL and AFL, and the American and National leagues in baseball. And a lot of "local" loyalty (i.e., the majority of the fan base of the sports rabidly supports their local teams - so there's intense interest). Makes sense for divisional playoffs, then a final national playoff to happen. In other words, in order to determine the best in baseball or football (or soccer - with its World Cup) or pretty much any other team sport, there's a sense that you have to have a playoff to determine who emerges as "the best".

Golf, however, is entirely made up of individual agents out for themselves, generally with little or no attachment to any city (or even, in fact, country). The PGA doesn't play in divisions, and most of the players don't even play in every tournament during the year. There's no "natural" sense that you need a "playoff" to determine anything. In the past - it was simply the majors that mattered, and at the end of the year, the rankings on the money list.

I think Finchim tried to cut-and-paste a model from team sports onto a sport made up of individual free agents. It just doesn't feel (to most casual golf fans) like something that is natural or necessary, but rather, as something artificial and manufactured.

This is rendered even worse by the bizarrely convoluted points system that governs the whole mess. While there are a few obscure rules in baseball and football playoffs (mostly related to wild card spots), once the draws are set, everyone knows what the playoffs will look like. In other words, fans can easily become very engaged in the process. It is accessible. During the playoffs, in fact, some of the most intense discussions are about all of the "if/thens" ... if team X gets to the second round, and team y also wins, that should be a fantastic match-up" ... etc., etc. Fans love it.

In contrast, the FedEx Cup seems almost purposely occult. I watched a bit of the Barclay's this weekend ... noticed that the announcers didn't even try to explain the system. They talked about rules being changed from last year, and that people could move up and down the ranks much faster, in bigger leaps, but didn't even start mentioning how (they just said to check the PGATour site to see how the standings looked after the tournament). Few intense fans, and pretty much no casual fans understand how the system works ... and the fact that the strange math can produce even stranger results doesn't help either (a guy could actually win the final tournament, but still not win the Cup ... what the hell kind of a "Golf Super Bowl" is that?)

So, my (succinct) answer to your question about "why" is this: The PGA Tour tried to force a playoff model from team sports into an individual sport. Even if this was done well, it didn't have a very good chance of working. But it was done so poorly as to be almost idiotic. The entire scheme seems more like a "proposed business plan" in some undergrad business school class. (As a matter of fact, it will probably wind up being a Case Study in MBA programs ... ).

I'll bet FedEx is pissed ...

Thank You Midas Mulligan for such a well thought out answer to my question- I really do appreciate it... I've been asking around and no one really was able to tell me, either here on GolfWrx or people I met in person.

I wasn't trying to stir the pot- I'm really new to golf and like anything I obsess about, can't get enough. In fact, next to baseball, it is pretty much all I watch on TV.

I definitely understand the Tiger factor. Same as in baseball- favorite team loses in round 1 of the playoffs, all those fans turn off everything to follow... something about the World Series being the early start to Spring Training...

And for someone new to the game, there are no traditions when it comes to stuff like this, so I didn't know.

Like I said, though, I really did enjoy watching the Barclay's this weekend. Heck, it came down to a two hole playoff between Vijay and Sergio- if it were the US Open, would it be more exciting? Maybe... because of the tradition and the pressure. But to me, watching the playoff was just as exciting.

I think those who aren't watching the tournaments are missing out on some good golf. It's ashame something like the playoff system should cloud their enjoyment of the game.

I didn't watch a whole lot of the Barclay's but what I saw yesterday was brutal with the brown greens...
Honestly, I am having a hard time understanding all of the changes with the points system this year; it seems that the Tour got what they wanted with the volatility thing, though.
Most likely, I will watch a lot of the tournament this weekend being a holiday and all.

Welcome to golf, mate! If you haven't fully grasped it yet, you will soon - you haven't just taken up a sport, you've joined a cult ...

And your "fresh eyes" are good. You are absolutely correct, this was a great finish this weekend (I was certainly watching it). Exciting as hell.

It may be that I've just been watching and playing for so long I've gotten a wee bit jaded. I do observe, for myself, that I "prepare" for the majors ... I actually try to clear my schedule - be in my office (with my TV) on the Thursday/Friday, and delibrately schedule very early tee times on the weekends to get home in time to watch (with the exception of the Open, in which case I schedule tee times after 3PM). With the FedEx Cup tourneys? Yes - I'll certainly watch, and they certainly can get exciting ... but ... to me, they simply do not engage my interest and imagination any more than normal tournaments during the year (which also can get quite exciting in and of themselves). I'll watch when its convenient, but won't organize my schedule to make sure not to miss them.

My explanation was only trying to articulate some sort of subtle feelings that I think a lot of hard-core golf fans have, and explain why the raw numbers (viewership and attendance) simply are far below what FedEx and Finchim probably expected ... but was by no means trying to dampen you enthusiasm (or anyone else's).

PS. Good grief man ... you're 45 and just started? Well ... as (I believe) Ben Hogan once said, it's never too late to start wasting your life ...

Yeah! My father-in-law told me I should take up cocaine istead- it's cheaper and less addicting.

Man, was he right.