Aw, poor PGA pros having to work extra hard for two months in a row...
Though I think the FedEx Cup playoff format could (and should and will) be tweaked to be less complicated and more player-friendly, I am a bit tired of elite pros complaining about having to play so much golf this year (post here, AP article here). After all, the PGA felt compelled to create a playoff because most of the big names made a habit of barely playing at all after the PGA Championship.
Few people like to have to work extra hard, but all athletes (and others) have times with extra intensity and less rest (e.g., playoff time for team sports, the Olympics for some others, April for accountants, etc.). And most sports heros earn their keep by coming up big during these intense times, not by moaning about being really tired and asking for a few days off.
That all said, I do think the FedEx Cup format could make everyone happy with this simple tweak:
Rather than another "standard" event this week to weed the playoffs field down from 70 to 30 for the final event, everyone placed from 23 to 70 should have to play in a match-play event, with the top 16 of this group emerging to go on to the finals. Those placed 23 to 38 now get a first-round bye in this match-play event, while players 39 to 70 play singles matches with the losers going home. The winners in the first match then play a second match with the players who got a bye, and these 16 winners move on to join the field in the final event of the FedEx Cup.
This mid-stream match play approach produces many benefits: The top 22 players get an automatic week off, while the next 48 players only have to play 1 or 2 rounds to move on. Also, players placed 23 to 38 get rewarded with a bye, while a suddenly hot player can still make up for an unspectacular season by performing well in the playoffs. Finally, I think one NCAA-like win-or-go-home match play event would liven up fall golf a lot.
28 Comments:
Or how bout this.
Almost in every sport, what you do in the regular season doesnt mean an thing in the playoffs. It just helps the seeding.
The seeding should go just they do now.
The top 120 of the 144 should advanced based on their playoff perfomance after Barclays. Which means if u dont play, you will be left out. Top 70 of the remaining 120 will advance, again based on the Deutsche bank performance. If you skip it or miss cut, you get ZERO points.
It gets rather old hearing the big names in golf complaining about the schedule. There is a larger amount of players that don't recieve the great luxaries that the big names get (eg. chartered planes, assistants, high end hotels, big tour buses). There are a group out on the grind driving themselves to the tourney's and staying in basic hotels just trying to "make it big". If the bigs can't pay their dues anymore may I suggest they scale back on the personal business and side projects.
not bad suggestions, I had no problem with Tiger missing the first week as in most playoff circumstances, the #1 seed gets a week off on the first week.
I couldn't agree more about the bitching and complaining from tour pros..Jesus Christ people, it's golf. You play so much less than nearly any other sport in the world.
Your "tweak" suggestion sounds really good to me. I love watching match play and I love watching the more obscure players. But most don't and I think it would be difficult to get an audience for the "non-standard" event. The fact is that the market dictates and lots of golf fans don't want to see a match that doesn't include the big stars. And the big stars know how much they're valued and really take advantage of it. That's human nature it's a business for the independant contractors.
Geez though, it must be so frustrating for the PGA and the commish when they find themselves totally cow-towing to the star players only to be told they're not doing enough.
i thought the suggestions in this post sounded great as i love match play (i really enjoyed the u.s. am this year)- but, alas, patricia's comments are very sound. the ratings need to be considered - maybe there is a way to create a match play segment of this event with players in the 11 to 70range and give the top 10 a pass to the "finals" - this certainly would put many A players on the tube for the ratings during match play and then set the final field at 40. i think this match play event could be marketed with a lot of excitment - it could be the best segment of the tourney - guys fighting to stay alive for a shot at the pot of gold.... etc. etc.
as an added benefit this would also give the spoiled superstars incentive to play in the first 3 events to ensure that they maintain a top ten ranking - then they all get a bye right before the final event to rest.... poor babies...
- this could work, no? -
The two things I find odd about the FedEX Cup is 1) the fact it is 4 straight weeks. I would have thought they would spread it out somewhat. And 2)it seems to me that they need to rethink how they spread out points during the playoff events. When someone can finish in the top 5 and not move on, that strikes me as unfair.
The FedEx Cup is a big zero. To call it a “playoff” and to compare it to playoffs in other sports is a non-starter. For one thing, when you playoff in the NBA, NFL or MLB, you’re going for a recognized “championship”. What do you get from the FedEx-a lot of money sometime down the road. It doesn’t make you the “Champion Golfer” of the year, like the British Open claims, or put you into the record books like a Masters win or a US Open. Even the PGA has more weight than this pretend “playoff”. There are no parallels with real playoffs. Sure, the top seed gets a bye, but they don’t lose their position as a result. Tiger went from 1st to 4th by taking a week off. And the proposed fixes miss the point, which, specifically, is to drum up interest in the end of the year events. Yeah, match play for the last remaining spots sounds good but who would plunk down millions of dollars to sponsor it? And who would watch?
The players are the game. Maybe, Tiger, Phil, Ernie and Vijay should just dump the PGA. What sponsor would turn down their request for an exemption, which majors would turn them away? How many millions could they make from appearance fees? I think Tiger (along with other top players) might win one of these made up championships and then just bag the whole thing. Do we seriously want to jeopardize their performance in the Ryder or President’s Cups (which actually have some meaning) by insisting that they play in Finchem’s fantasy league? The players put themselves on the line and open themselves up to public scrutiny during the Ryder and President’s Cup events for very little compensation while the various sponsors and golf organizations rake it in. Why should they be told they have to play for four weeks before those tournaments?
Shorter playing times than other sports? Are you kidding? Even Tiger’s schedule of 15-19 events means weeks of prep, tournaments which require 20+ hours of competition along with many hours of practice, the handling of various course types and weather conditions (the NBA court is pretty much uniform-can you say that for Augusta, Pebble Beach, Carnoustie and Medinah?). There’s no sitting on the bench in golf, no TV time outs to catch your breath, no “special teams” or offensive or defense squads to limit your playing time.
Hopefully, this failed experiment will run its misguided course for one year and then disappear.
I actually think this was a solution to a non-existent problem. Well, maybe non-existent is the wrong term, but the fact that the PGA Tour season drops off after the PGA, except for the Ryder and President's Cups, frankly, is an insurmountable problem, simply because of how different golf is from the other sports.
The commenter who mentioned that calling these "playoffs" is ridiculous. The only way you can compare them to other sports' playoffs is to do match play. (Damn those NASCAR folks, putting stupid ideas in Finchem's head). I wouldn't object to a match play format, where the "regular season" seeds you, and the best players get byes, but having a "playoff" that you have to have a calculator handy to figure out what the hell is going on, yeah, not my idea of a good time.
"Perhaps it's time for the Tour to rethink institutionalizing certain obligations to play, even if this means abandoning or modifying the "independent contractor" model that has long ruled its relationship with the players. The common wisdom is that the Tour's star players dictate the terms of this relationship. I think this is nonsense. No player is larger than the game, larger than the Tour. After all, where else are these guys going to play?"
Read more:
http://golfculture.blogspot.com/
"Perhaps it's time for the Tour to rethink institutionalizing certain obligations to play, even if this means abandoning or modifying the "independent contractor" model that has long ruled its relationship with the players. The common wisdom is that the Tour's star players dictate the terms of this relationship. I think this is nonsense. No player is larger than the game, larger than the Tour. After all, where else are these guys going to play?"
Read more:
http://golfculture.blogspot.com/
"Perhaps it's time for the Tour to rethink institutionalizing certain obligations to play, even if this means abandoning or modifying the "independent contractor" model that has long ruled its relationship with the players. The common wisdom is that the Tour's star players dictate the terms of this relationship. I think this is nonsense. No player is larger than the game, larger than the Tour. After all, where else are these guys going to play?"
This would be a stupid, stupid idea. These guys do not play for a "team". It's just them. I appreciate the union mentality we have, one for all and all for one, but it's silly to try to use team sports as a model for this individual sports. For one, the make-up of "the Tour" is constantly changing, as some players get their card, some lose it, some retire, etc. There's no analogy for that in team sports. If there were, the Devil Rays would be in Triple (or Double) A, the Raiders would have been demoted, etc. I suppose, if the Tour wanted to drive all its best players to Europe, they could say "if you don't play in everything we tell you to play in, you can't play in ANYTHING." You know, just to flex its muscle. Frankly, I don't understand what "no player is larger than the game" even means. You're upset that a golfer has chosen not to play in the event YOU wanted him to play in? Why exactly does your preference or Tim Finchem's, for that matter, rule over theirs?
If it weren't for the ridiculous faux-playoff debacle that is the FedEx Cup, we wouldn't be having this conversation. If it weren't set up so stupidly that you can win the thing without playing in all of its events, (and that's a problem with the Cup, not with the situation that came before) then it wouldn't matter if players didn't play, and they wouldn't feel like they have to give excuses. Yeah, the excuses don't make them look good. But hey, have a phony playoff, get phony excuses. This is a badly conceived solution to a not-that-big-or-pressing of a problem. I'm sorry that people feel that golf is not exciting after the PGA. I'm likewise upset that there's no college football in March or April. So?
Wouldn't it make more sense to try to artificially create another major, one played in September? That would at least fit within the understood format of golf, and have as good a chance of success as this ridiculous Cup.
Although, I agree with the rip on Phil for wanting to be there at the birth of his child. How dare he care more about his family than I do about his winning the US Open? Talk about screwed up priorities.
I will also note that Jack played in as few tournaments each year as Tiger does, so don't give me any of this crap about how the players of yesteryear were real PLAYERS and the ones today are just wimpy prima donnas. It ain't so.
Linus is right on with that last comment. The top players are bigger than the Tour. The Tour takes orders from them, not the other way around. You can moan and groan about that, but it's the way it is. Golf is not a team sport, so there's nothing stopping the top players from going and forming a tour of their own if the PGA Tour makes life too hard for them.
To be fair to the players, too, golf still has a nine-month season, even with it having been shortened. In most other sports, it might be seven months, perhaps less for a team that doesn't make the playoffs.
Vijay Singh does just what many people wish Tiger did, in regard to playing more events. He hasn't had his "A game" the last few weeks because of it. I don't hear people praising Singh because he plays all the time, even though at some point he ends up losing his momentum. I imagine the full schedule he plays winds up losing him respect. People would come to watch Tiger and Phil, though, even if they barely played any events.
come on guys, the question is with the what's up with the players complaining about playing four straight weeks for a "playoff". My thoughts are many and varied. The players bought into playing every week when they became prfessional golfers. They became professional golfers not because it was the only thing they could do but because there is a hellava lot of money to be made and even the 60th best player makes or will make more than a million this year. I also want the poor, overworked players that complain about the heat and some of the conditions they work in to think about 150,000 plus U.S. serviceman and women currently serving in the heat Iraq and Afganistan just so these elite players can earn that kink of money evey week without fear of a terrorist attack taking out the gallary. So should the FedEx cup be revamped? Probably. should the top players be seeded? Probably. Why not let them or force them to miss the first event? Should the cup include a match play event? absolutly!
The players bought into playing every week when they became prfessional golfers.
Says who? Where is that written? Where is the "you must play every week" clause? In fact, your next sentence "...because there is a hellava lot of money to be made and even the 60th best player makes or will make more than a million this year" explicitly refutes that. Players can play 18 weeks out of the year, and make millions (not to mention their income from endorsement contracts, none of which, I am sure, require that the player plays every single week). This statement is just silly.
I also want the poor, overworked players that complain about the heat and some of the conditions they work in to think about 150,000 plus U.S. serviceman and women currently serving in the heat Iraq and Afganistan just so these elite players can earn that kink of money evey week without fear of a terrorist attack taking out the gallary.
I hear this type of comment all the time, and I have some sympathy with it. It's tough for us peons to hear the rich and famous complain about ANYTHING, let alone how hard or tiring their "job" is. The fact is, it doesn't answer the question at hand, and too often just sounds like sour grapes. I'd like to think if I were a tour player, I'd just say "I'm not playing this week because I don't want to" and leave it at that. Would people still complain "What's wrong with Linus? Doesn't he know how good he has it?"
1. People are paying attention to and talking about golf after the PGA Champ. Mission accomplished.
2. The "playoffs" are what they are. To think they failed misses #1 above.
anon 9:48
excellent observation. i can just see big tim's staff bringing him post after post from golf blog after golf blog with multitudes of comments about the fed ex - he currently has the widest howareya smile in america.
guess what - he probably won't make a single change to the format - as my commanding officer used to say - if a soldier isn't bitching about the food and/or his boots and/or his superiors decision making, etc., etc., etc., than something is very, very wrong!
Well, maybe FInchem won't change a thing. I doubt that Tiger, Phil, Ernie or Vijay have signed on long term. Once any of these guys wins this once, I think they'll bag the event. Even without winning, I don't think you'll see Tiger next year. And without him-here's a clue: The Barclays couldn't outdraw little league baseball without Tiger.
Looking at the projected points total for getting into the Tour Championship, 94,000+ should do it. That means that, by finishing in the top twenty for the season, you could skip the first three tournaments and still play the Tour Championship. So, Tiger might show up for that, if for no better reason than preping for the Ryder Cup.
Oh, and let Finchem make playing in all four tournaments mandatory-he'll have to go to the Nationwide Tour to fill out a tournament.
if tiger wins $10 million - even as an annuity - why do you think he won't play again - $10 million for 4 to 5 weeks play even over a 3 to 5 year period is still serious money for a feww weeks work - no?
i think the $10 million guarantees these spoiled stupidstars will keep coming back, regardless of all their bitching and gaming techniques.
Why would Finchem be glad of all the criticism? Because "well, at least people are talking about it?" That's dumb. As an earlier commenter pointed out about the Barclays, people may be talking about the FedEx Cup, but they sure ain't watching it. How does it help Timmy if all the talk is criticism and none of it translates into $$$$?
People are paying attention to and talking about golf after the PGA Champ. Mission accomplished.
Bull Crap. As usual, all the talk is all Tiger, all the time.
Thank God for the LPGA. I am sooo sick of Tiger Woods,Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods.
Anon 12:04
Oh my. Tiger has so many ways to make money, I don't think he needs to be under Finchem's heel. Gatorade is reportedly offering him 100 million over five years for a new deal. He could always design another high profile course. Depending on which figures you look at, Tiger made either 70 or 90 million this year. At some point (now, I think) doing what he wants to do is more important to him than what other people (read: PGA Executive) wants him to do.
good point arch8ie but i still contend that 10 million for 4 weeks work is very easy money even for tiger
all of his other ventures are admittedly very lucrative but they take lots of time and take him away from golf focus - this money is right in his den and easy pickings and nobody .... not even buffett or gates considers $10 million - even as an annuity - chump change my friend --- so straighten up and start using your head soldier!!!
A 2:38
Just a last thought or two- if Tiger wanted work that was "golf focused" I'm sure he could make a week long trip to Dubai and give playing lessons at a million a pop. Given the level of prep he makes for each tournament, four weeks is a considerable chunk of time just for the money. But, here's something that just struck me- make the FedEx money available immediately if it goes to a charity (like Choi wanted to do)-Then Tiger would tap his foundation as the recipient and (maybe) stay on board. A player could say up front-"…put 25% in my annuity and send 75% to Saint Jude's"- that might make even me watch.
arch8ie
i'm done with you. i think you are fixated on very strange ideas - god help the people in your life.
good night.
Arch8ie: That's a great idea about making the $ available immediately if it goes to a charity. Also, and maybe you know the answer to this, I've noticed that quite a few Swedes on the European Tour list their official residence as Dubai. Is this mainly because of a tax break or are Henrik Stenson and Johan Edfors raking it in giving private lessons there? Is that where the dough is?
Don't know about the tax advantages. Tiger's designing a course there which is why I choose that location.
why put constraints on a purse. the purpose of the purse was to hype the event.
tour players are independent contracters and can make the charity determination for themselves. what you guys are missing is that the tour will never get away with dictating or manipulating these guys - they are independent and have lot's of dough, so therefore can tell big tim and his crew to fuck off if they like.
like it or not it is a star system and one of the perks of being a rich star is to act independent.
good day
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