The PGA Tour announced today it has no plans to change the playoff schedule and points system for the 2010 FedEx Cup. Rick George, PGA Chief of Operations, said there are no changes on the agenda and that the issue was not even discussed at a policy board meeting earlier this week. ”We think the FedEx Cup did a lot of positive things and met the objectives we set for it,” George said. “We don’t anticipate it changing.”
As I’ve mentioned before, I think the current FedEx Cup is a complete disaster. It’s easy to look at the end result of this season and proclaim the FedEx Cup a complete success – it doesn’t get any better than Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson finishing in the top two slots, right? The fact is, it could’ve been a lot worse. And much like the BCS in college football, the longer the current setup remains in place, the better the odds that we’ll eventually get that “perfect storm” of horridness.
There were glimpses of what could go wrong this year. Heath Slocum won a playoff event and jumped from #124 to #3 in the standings. The fact is, 125 golfers is too many for a playoff system. A playoff champion should be someone who played well all year, not someone who caught fire for 2 weeks at the end of the year. Otherwise, why keeps points throughout the regular season? Some of the players in the playoffs this year had only made 3 cuts all season! Why even give one of those players an opportunity? At best, they’ll play well enough to advance and rob a more deserving player of a spot in the later rounds.
A true playoff system should pit the final players against each other. If the tour doesn’t want a completely match-play playoff system, then use the first 2 pointless weeks of the month-long affair as stoke-play qualifiers. Once the field is whittled down, then have match-play to decide the true champion. Otherwise, you’re just pointlessly trying to prop up tournaments that used to not mean anything. Tour players care more about The Masters and The US Open. Maybe pitting the best against each other individually will give the FedEx Cup real meaning.
Please start listening to your fans, PGA Tour. Otherwise, instead of Tiger vs. Phil one, you might end up with Doug Barron and Ted Purdy in a dramatic battle for the title! No offense to either of them, but I’m sure you can do the math how awesome those t.v. ratings would be…