The Golf Watch

Catching up: FedEx Cup and Turning Stone

Folks--Sorry for the lack of posts the last week, but here's a bulleted summary of what you might have missed:

--Phil Mickelson won the Tour Championship, giving Tiger Woods the FedEx Cup.  Does that even make sense?  Two suggestions: Either make the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup separate events or make it so that whoever wins the Tour Championship wins the cup.  Simple.

--It's really cold in New York right now for the Turning Stone Championship.  Inga Hammond was wearing a Bridgestone hat on the telecast.  It was the first time I had seen a GC reporter wearing a brand on-air.

--Forbes reports that Tiger Woods has surpassed the $1 billion mark in career earnings.  Time to go for $2B!

--Verizon's contract for its Hilton Head tournament expires this April, and the Tour is now searching for a replacement.  I'm guessing Ginn won't be getting a call anytime soon. 

Finchem: Everybody hates the BCS but everybody talks about it

Tim Finchem made an appearance on Wednesday's edition of Pardon the Interruption where Tony Kornheiser and Dan Le Batard must have thrown the sheet of paper with the soft questions out the window.  Kornheiser and Le Batard challenged Finchem on the confusing point system and the excitement factor.  This is the part of the interview that jumped out at me:

Korneiser:  If I understand this correctly the way the current system is set up, Jim Furyk, who hasn’t won a tournament all year, could win the Cup and the $10M, are you at peace with that?

Finchem: I am because it is the system we have.  As long as its exciting…Everybody hates the BCS but everybody talks about it.  It doesn’t disturb me.

A pro-FedEx Cup commentary I can appreciate

As much as we criticize the design and marketing of the FedEx Cup, there are some positives that we can take from its evolution.  And it took two full-reads of Scott Michaux's commentary for me to be a believer, if you want to call it that.

Michaux writes that the FedEx Cup is in a much better place than it was the previous two years.  That wasn't too hard of a task, considering the winner of the Cup had already been decided prior to the Tour Championship in '07 and '08.  But this is where Michaux nails it:

Certainly this creation is far from perfect, but in its third season the PGA Tour is finally delivering on a promise to add some heft to the back end of its schedule.

Yes, it's goofy that six-time winner Woods could theoretically have swept the three playoff events, finished second at East Lake and still lost the trophy and $10 million bonus to Jim Furyk, who hasn't won a tournament all season.

However, these playoffs have Woods and Furyk and Phil Mickelson and Padraig Harrington and Ernie Els all playing deeper and more often at a time of year they'd normally be vacationing.

Then there are the stories of Heath Slocum and Marc Leischman, who played their way into the top-30 of the FedEx Cup standings, giving them automatic exemptions into the first three majors of 2010 and all five invitational events. 

The FedEx Cup has a long way to go before the playoff system is a legitimate one.  Match play for the final event is probably the only answer.  But let's put things into perspective: this season long race is making golf more exciting that it ever has been in late September.  

Michael Bradley wins a Tour event, misses FedEx Cup

I'm sure PGA Tour officials weren't expecting this scenario to unfold. 

Michael Bradley won the Puerto Rico Open in March, which took place the same week as the CA Championship at Doral.

Sadly, for Bradley, he failed to finish better than T39 the rest of the season.

That means he finished 139th in the standings, missing out on the playoffs.

This is evidence that the FedEx Cup scoring system can actually work.  If you win a Tour event and don't play well in any other tournament the rest of the year, you shouldn't qualify for the playoffs. 

Don't forget, there are four major championships

Over the next four weeks, you are going to be a part of one giant publicity ride trying to convince you that the FedEx Cup actually matters.  The networks will be emphasizing that fact, but really, it's the purse size and bonuses that matter to the players.

John Feinstein said it best on his Golf Central piece last night by telling the Tour: "Stop, you can't just make something great by insisting it's great." 

Feinstein concludes that no matter how big the checks are, there's no comparison to the four majors. 

"That’s like grouping the Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and the Meineke Muffler Bowl"

I loved this FedEx Cup knock out of Jeff Babineau's end of year notes:

OK, so I snoozed through most of the FedEx Cup post-season renovations and nip-tucks, and it wasn’t until the other day I noticed the winner at The Players will be awarded the exact same number of FedEx points as the winners of the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship. The Players is a nice tourney, but puh-lease. I realize the Tour has an inferiority complex and is driven to elevate its own little backyard gem, but that’s like grouping the Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and the Meineke Muffler Bowl.

Kornheiser: The last two years of this have been so bad that this has to be better

On last Wednesday's edition of Pardon the Interruption, hosts Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon discussed the latest tweaks to the FedEx Cup format. I found Kornheiser's comments to be the most revealing:

There are two major championships that are totally flawed—The Chase (Nascar) is totally flawed and the FedEx Cup is totally flawed.  Two years ago, Tiger Woods skipped the tournament and won this thing.  This past year, Vijay Singh had to just walk around 18 in order to win the thing.  You cannot have your last event be meaningless. 

So whatever you have to do, even if its lie cheat or steal, to give people a chance to win, then you have to try and do that, in that sense I’m in favor of this...The last two years of this have been so bad that this has to be better.

As a footnote, I've always appreciated Kornheiser and Wilbon's golf analysis.  Both play and follow the game pretty closely, but are far removed from the inner circle of golf writers.  I guess that might be why their remarks are genuine.  They're not reading Jeff Rude and Ryan Herrington articles each week, rather, they represent the average golf fan.

Tour announces FedEx Cup plans for '09

I'll definitely provide more thought and insight on this topic over the next few days, but for the time being, Doug Ferguson of the AP breaks down the latest development in determining a winner of the FedEx Cup:

Under the new formula, points that previously had been reset at the start of the four-tournament playoffs will not be changed until the Tour Championship, meaning all 30 players who qualify for the finale will have a mathematical chance to win.

Finchem said the top five in the standings at East Lake would win the FedEx Cup with a victory, while the next five in the standings also would have a reasonable chance by winning.

It's a shame that match play couldn't have been incorporated into the plan, but hey...there's always next year.

Ratings at Tour Championship sing the same tune

After a glimmer of hope at the Ryder Cup, ratings tanked yet again last week, with a highly entertaining Tour Championship, and a disappointing end to the FedEx Cup. Thomas Bonk files in his weekly report:

With no drama (Vijay Singh had already clinched it) and no Tiger (he's sidelined), the Tour Championship got no ratings. Well, that's not accurate, so let's just say that given the factors going against it, the Tour Championship got thrown for a loss.

Saturday's third round on NBC had an overnight Nielsen rating of 1.3, down 46.4% from last year's 2.8 (that turned out to be a 2.6 in the final rating).

Sunday's fourth round had an overnight rating of 1.8, down 54.5% from last year's 3.3 (a 3.0 final rating).

Vijay awarded FedEx Cup while leaders are on 15, 16

I find it quite telling that the FedEx Cup was awarded to Vijay Singh while the leaders were still out on the course.  The presentation was pretty brief and low key, with NBC's Jimmy Roberts conducting a two minute interview with Singh. 

What I found so amazing about the whole "ceremony" was that Don Colleran, Executive Vice President of FedEx, didn't say one word.  In fact, for the second time, he didn't even have the pleasure of handing over the trophy...Tim Finchem had that honor (shouldn't Finchem be giving out the Tour Championship prize, not the FedEx Cup?)

Also, while Vijay was being interviewed by Roberts, NBC cut to Phil Mickelson's drive on 16. Ouch.