Ryan, I agree that the Fed Ex Cup lacks in a certain veracity and impending doom that is needed to make playoffs truly successful. It seems as though the powers that be played it safe with the format. They wanted the ability to add an abundance of people so none of the superstars missed out. It is the nature of golf with sponsor and tournament exemptions to always include the sport’s biggest names. In my mind, the Fed Ex Cup was created with the same philosophy.

You’re right, Jake. The Tour tends to concede to the rank and file more often than not. That’s why guys like Slocum get in at all instead of treating the playoffs like four extra WGC events. It’s kind of a buzzkill for the format.

The entire idea of the FedEx Cup is bogus. This is a made for TV event.

First, throughout the season, it gives FedEx innumerable impressions when announcers, etc. talk about it.

Second, and most importantly, golf’s championships are decided in the Majors. Lucas Glover is the champion golfer of the United States. We settled that in the US Open. Stewart Cink is the “Champion Golfer of the Year” – we settled that in the British Open. And so forth and so on. The FedEx settles exactly nothing compared to a major.

Third, playoffs should be after the regular season. If you have to have them at all, narrow the field to 32 (in order to make it truly meaningful to make the playoffs. This isn’t hockey or the NBA) and have two or three events in November. That would make Silly Season actually meaningful.

Fourth, it is utterly stupid to schedule your in-season playoffs with the penultimate event the week college football starts and the final event the first week of the NFL. Golf may be feeling its oats thanks to the Tiger Woods era ratings, but let’s be honest here — golf is precious little compared to football in this country. Especially in the long-awaited opening weekend for the most powerful sports league in the country. Duh!

There’s just so much wrong with the FedEx Cup that they don’t need to fix it, they need to put it to sleep and admit that it was a stupid idea to begin with.

I really do think the idea can work if executed properly. The problem is that it has yet to be done right.

I don’t buy into the dismissal of the FEC because we have majors. Taken to its logical end, we may as well just play four tournaments then. I think the FEC can have a meaningful nature to it, but no one should ever attempt to put it in the company of the majors. This should just be something that’s fun and compelling.

I honestly don’t mind Slocum moving from 124th to 3rd. He won the tournament against an impressive field and made some great putts on 15 and 18 to win the tournament (although I was pulling for Stricker). What I do mind about the format is that Slocum got in in the first place because as several of you have said, and as you say Ryan in your post, the field is too large. Top 100 would be nice and you could chop to 70 and then to 50 and then to 30, but all the players want a guaranteed paycheck for mediocrity.

Vijay has the right idea for the playoffs: make it like a true playoff and whoever misses the first cut or finishes low in the future events is eliminated. Based on last week, we still would’ve kept most of the big guns and guys like Sean O’Hair would be gone, but that’s their problem for playing poorly. Maybe the first leg of the playoffs could give a bye to the top (insert whatever number) seeded players and increase the purses incrementally for the events so that the players who have the bye are rewarded to compete for more money the next week.

I know this thing was made for TV, but I don’t find it very TV friendly. The audience can’t decipher the points system and although I thought Sunday was great for the tournament, I didn’t get the big feeling that a playoff has. Maybe its because the guys on the bottom are guys hardly anyone roots for, but I think if the stakes were increased so that crowd favorites had a chance of being eliminated, there’d be more interest. Sponsors would hate it, but do we honestly think Tiger is going to miss the cut at any of these playoff venues? They always seemed tailored to his interests anyway.

Ok – somehow, I left the office for a little while and have returned to an episode of The Twilight Zone.

First, after one week, the Fed Ex Cup is an utter failure…then Tiger isn’t “clutch” this entire year. Yeah – 5 wins, mostly top 10’s in the non-wins, and one bizarre missed cut.

For the record, Golfweek.com had a suggestion of a 128 player match play tournament over four weeks at the four sites. Whatcha think?

http://msn.foxsports.com/golf/story/10007002/Monday-Scramble:-Golf-could-use-some-madness