Too Much Volatility Now?

by Ryan Ballengee on Aug 25, 2008 9:48 AM EDT

We are one week into Playoffs v2.0 and everyone is complaining already. Vijay Singh managed his way to victory for the fourth time at the Barclays - first time at Ridgewood CC - and skyrocketed from 7th to 1st in the FedEx Cup standings. Equally notable are the performances of Matt Goggin and Kevin Sutherland, who moved way up the leader board.

Now, the Players are complaining that the system is too volatile.

Stu Cink was concerned from the start - something announced only AFTER everyone complains.

"Obviously, the idea was to make the playoffs more valuable," said Policy Board member Stewart Cink after finishing his round Sunday. "Trust me, we looked at it so many different ways, our heads were spinning."

Here's a real after-the-fact kicker. Cink has been a good company man all season and widely espoused the benefits of the new points system, but now that there are some crazy cracks showing and his peers are questioning him about the merits of the details the Policy Board authorized, he has come clean.

"I was hesitant to weight the playoffs this heavily, to be honest," he said.

Cink does have a point, though, in one respect.

The PGA Tour went to the governing bodies and majors, and convinced them to give the FEC respect by allowing the Top 30 at season end to get into the US Open and the Masters. Those are spots that should be reserved for players who are consistent all year long - basically, using the money list. But, on PGATour.com, you can't even find the money list that easily.

As I have said before, I am ok with the Playoff concept so long as it is what it is - a series of tournaments with big money that mean to get golf on the sporting map in September. This does not mean that the Playoffs should identify the Tour's best player. Considering that 144 players start the thing - more than the number of guys automatically exempt next year - that's not possible with the new volatility.

If you choose the intent as being volatility, then treat it that way and having nothing but the cash hinge on the FEC. If you choose identifying the best player, then go back to v1.0 and restrict mobility. Either way, you will get some critics - especially since $10 million just happens to be a lot of money.

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Cink has extra motives

Stewart Cink is one of the best player reps the PGA Tour has ever had – mostly because he isn’t afraid to fire back at a bunch of whining professional golfers when they are wrong. Two years ago, when the first set of playoff points were set up, you could count the number of players who showed up to give input on one hand – and he let them know that if they don’t show up – they don’t count – so shut up. Good for him.

Now they have gone the other way, though I don’t think this set of numbers is all THAT volatile. Fifteen guys moved up from outside the bottom 121-144 to play this week. That’s not bad. And nobody really played themselves out of contention that was in the top 30 – they just put a lot of extra pressure on themselves. Poor babies.

I’m not a big fan of the guys who think that the top money should be theres by entitlement. They got TO the playoffs by playing well. NOW there is a new race and they can’t just rest on their laurels to collect at the end. Well – maybe Tiger will get to, but he dropped to 15 after week one.

"this ball will fit in that fairway"

by courtgolf on Aug 25, 2008 10:17 AM EDT reply actions