FedEx Cup 3.0 Under Discussion
by Ryan Ballengee on Sep 8, 2008 11:06 AM EDT
10 comments
Vijay Singh is four complete rounds at East Lake away from winning $10 million ($9 million of it in cash) as the winner of the second FedEx Cup Playoffs on the PGA Tour. He cannot be caught, even if Camilo Villegas - winner of this past weekend's BMW Championship - wins for the second time in the series. A missed cut at the first event in the series, the Barclays, precludes him from catching Singh with a second win.
The outcome in Singh's favor was all but assured after Singh posted his second straight win in the Playoff series by taking the Barclays and the Deutsche Bank Championship.
Similarly, last year, Tiger Woods locked up the FedEx Cup heading into the Tour Championship barring a collapse. His second place at Deutsche Bank and his win at the BMW Championship (still the Western Open to me) assured him that he could practically coast to the trophy that has yet to be kissed.
One of the points of this PGA Tour Playoff system is to make it possible for all participants to have a chance to win the series. That's why Major League Baseball instituted the Wild Card rule over a decade ago - and so many World Series champions have emerged from that role. The last two SuperBowl Champions didn't even win their division, but now each of the Manning brothers has a NFL title.
The easiest way to foil the unpredictability of a Playoff, though, is to end the series early. In other sports, that would be known as a sweep. Vijay Singh swept half of the series, in the first two events. If this were a seven game NBA Playoff - not fixed by Tim Donaghy - it would have been stopped at 4-0. See, regular playoffs end after someone has already won.
Not so on the PGA Tour, though. The BMW Championship and Tour Championship still have $7 million purses that offer over $1.25 million to the winners of each. Even though both of those titles have no bearing on the FedEx Cup, the players want a shot at that cash. The sponsors who ponied up a lot of money to get involved with the PGA Tour want to see their events played out for all they're worth.
I would remind the PGA Tour that the Yankees did not get an 8th and 9th games to try to beat back the Red Sox's historic 2004 American League Championship Series win.
So, it doesn't matter what we do to tweak the Playoffs if guys like Woods and Singh are going to ruin it for the rest of the players. (I use ruin loosely.) Ponte Vedra, though, has some options to improve the Cup:
Change who qualifies - some players have suggested a NASCAR-style (isn't that what got us into this?) system that would have full-field events, but only a certain number of players actually playing for the FedEx Cup. That way, there could be spoilers, but avoid fiascoes where two blown cuts mean not getting into the Tour Championship.
Modify the points structure...again - some have suggested increasing the points for each event in the series to increase volatility. I have suggested adding points for various things like leading after a round, low round of the day, etc.
Throw in some match play at East Lake - another suggestion of mine that was backed by Jay Williamson after his final round at Bellerive.
Allow the major winners a free pass to the Tour Championship - this would be a great opportunity to finally end the PGA Grand Slam of Golf. Why not give the major champions a free pass to East Lake and expand the field to 32? The odds say that the major winners will make the Tour Championship, but in the event they do not, this will ensure their place and avoid the embarrassment of not being able to showcase guys like Paddy Harrington.
Again, though, no matter what the Tour decides, it should reward guys like Vijay Singh with the FedEx Cup. After all, he earned it.
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it's an uphill climb at best
Trying to “buy” excitement just doesn’t seem to work – especially in a pastoral game like golf. You can’t have music or organists playing the “charge” theme to get the galleries into the action. A big pile of cash on the 18th green doesn’t impress or excite most people because they aren’t getting any of it.
Is it really worth it to try to force some sort of artificial thrill into this game ? I don’t want to see golf turned into Team Tennis league with Luke Jensen (the Michgan surfer dude) calling the action. The game is bigger than the drunks in the gallery screaming “go in the hole !” or “You da man” after every swing – and it has an inherent dignity that allows holes like #16 at Scotsdale to be loud and raucous – but keeps it’s quiet nature the rest of the day.
Personally – I would prefer that the Fed Ex Cup go away. There is no way to turn the PGA Tour into the NFL without losing the nature of the game. Golf doesn’t have style points and doesn’t need it.
Oh – the MLB added the wild card to the playoffs for two reasons – (1) to make more money, and (2) to get a whole lot of teams to stop quitting halfway through the year. The wild card brings a few extra teams into the playoff chase. The fact that the wild card team has won the World Series several times has baffled a lot of people. (but you can bank on the idea that those Spankees fans were ready to demand those extra games against the Sox !) :-)
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
by courtgolf on Sep 8, 2008 12:02 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
lpga
I realize that because the “girls” thought it up first the PGA Tour will never consider using it, but the ADT – LPGA playoff system is logical and keeps players motivated throughout the season. Here’s the link to the detailed explanation: LPGA Playoffs
by dianemarie on Sep 8, 2008 12:27 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
sadly...
…it seems like that’s the reason the PGA wouldn’t take up a good system like the ADT – because someone else came up with it first.
I wonder if there would be a legal (copyright) problem with ADT if the PGA Tour adopted the same or a similar system.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
by courtgolf on Sep 8, 2008 1:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Faux Playoffs
There’s something wrong with a playoff system that lets a mathematical winner be decided before the championship.
What’s wrong with having playoffs that work like basically every other sport in existence? If it were up to me, I’d base entrance into the playoffs on a points system. Say it was the top 150 players (just for a nice round number – that might actually be too many).
I’d cut a chunk after each of the subsequent playoff tournaments. The Tour Championship would contain a field of the top 50 players or so. The winner of that would be the winner of the Fed Ex cup.
I don’t get a cumulative points system. A player could tear up the Tour in the beginning of the year, play some mediocre playoff tournaments and win the Fed Ex cup? That makes no sense. In every other sport I can think of right now, you spend the year getting into the playoffs, not securing a piece of the championship. Sure, those other sports have their issues too. But a cumulative, points-based system, in my opinion, works to limit excitement, not generate it.
by Double Eagle on Sep 8, 2008 3:47 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
What's the advantage?
Then for the best players? I think that’s what the Tour was trying to do with the cumulative points idea. I mean, Phil Mickelson said that with this kind of volatility that he just has to play enough events to get into the Playoffs and work his magic from there.
by Ryan Ballengee on Sep 8, 2008 4:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
it's called...
…“protecting your stars”. The biggest idea behind the points system is to give the best players the best chance of making it to the final week. TV and sponsors want the best chance of having Tiger and Phil playing together on Sunday of The Tour Championship (presented by Coca Cola)
Because we have such a lazy media that doesn’t want to have to work to get to know the players below the top 2 in the rankings, we don’t get to know the lower ranked players and don’t ever really pull for them. They are filed in the “boring automatons” file and we never know anything about them. Sutherland and Streelman are great guys – and they played some good golf down the stretch – but they were dismissed by the media as quickly as possible. TV doesn’t want replays of some of the WGC Match Play finals where two unknowns face off – regardless of how good the golf could be.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
by courtgolf on Sep 8, 2008 4:03 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Yes, but...
Don’t forget that Tiger Woods is still 70th in the standings and hasn’t played since June. There are some great names above him in the top 50. The odds of filling a top-50 with no-names at this time of year has to be pretty small. The big names will be there. Sure, some will get knocked off, but I’ll take that over a guy clinching the thing with entire tournaments left to play.
And that scenario is the same in other sports too. The NHL cringes when teams like Carolina get to the Stanley Cup. Can you imagine what MLB would be thinking if the Senators or Devilrays got into the playoffs and had a shot of making the World Series?
The other sports rely on stars to some extent to generate buzz too. They hype the match-ups and the stars. But can you imagine if they replaced the NFL playoffs with a points system like the Fed Ex Cup? It would be a joke.
Fandom doesn’t change just because golf is a mano y mano sport. People root for players just like teams. They appreciate competition and good play. In that respect, golf is the same as other sports. So does this system really do anything for the fans? I don’t think so. They might as well just roll back the clock to the way things used to be.
by Double Eagle on Sep 8, 2008 4:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
true enough
but Tiger was also #1 going into the playoffs after not playing at all since June. Winning 4 times in 6 starts with two 2nd’s tends to do that.
Like you said – people root for the names they know and the big winners. Golf is inundated with a lot of people who think Tiger invented golf. The game isn’t worth paying attention if Tiger’s not in the field.
(however – I disagree with you on one point – if the SENATORS got into the MLB post season – especially if Boog Powell was playing – people would watch !!) :-)
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
by courtgolf on Sep 8, 2008 4:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Scrap point system and use total strokes
Idea for next years Fedex Cup. Most golf fans can’t grasp the point system – get rid of it. Keep the point system to determine the top 144 players. Then at start of playoffs regroup them in terms of strokes. Top 6 players start at even or 0, next 6 at +1, and so on until #138 thru #144 are at +23. This is the value for the season play. Then the Fedex Cup equates into a 16 round tournament, where the player with the least amount of strokes over 4 tournaments plus starting playoff strokes wins the Fedex Cup. If a player skips a tournament, misses the cut or be disqualified, they are out of the playoffs. Only other change, is in first tournament, the cut is either 105/110 players, because you’ll need to have 16 rounds of play.
With the Fedex Cup over for this year, I looked at the data from the top 10 finishers. With this system, Sergio Garcia would have won by only 2 strokes over Anthony Kim. Rest of top 8 in relation to Sergio strokes
Sergio – 0
Kim – 2 back
Furyk – 3
Leonard – 10
Choi – 11
Curtis -13
VJ – 14
Wier – 16
Mickelson and Villegas would not have gotten to the Tour Championship since they both missed a cut during the Playoffs. This system doesn’t guarantee someone won’t run away with the Fedex cup, but the fans and the players will understand what they need to do to win. Its basically a 16 round tournament!
by Ernie86 on Oct 1, 2008 9:44 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
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