Getting Closer, But This Playoff Reset Thing Just Isn't Going To Work
by Ryan Ballengee on Sep 11, 2009 12:54 AM EDT
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PrintIt's bad enough that Tiger Woods, Steve Stricker, and other players are openly professing to be tired from the whirlwind that began at Hazeltine and has continued to Cog Hill in the FedExCup Playoffs.
Now, the players will be even more brain-fried after this weekend when the points of the top 30 players in the standings will be reset for the Tour Championship at East Lake. The Tour has touted throughout the Playoffs that players in the top five entering East Lake will win the $10 million FedExCup prize if they win the Tour Championship. And, they said that players in spots six through ten would have a "pretty good chance" to win the FEC if they could pull it out at East Lake.
The Tour released an article today - for players, media, and fans - to explain how the points reset actually works. The reset appears completely arbitrary because it is. There is no real rhyme or reason to it except to weight the reset to dramatically favor the players in the top ten, but especially the top five. That arbitrary reset is then combined with the points earned by finish at East Lake to determine the FedExCup champion.
Having studied this thing for about ten minutes, I definitely get the concept. I see how it works, although figuring out the myriad possibilities of how this could shake out is a task above my pay grade. But, I get what the Tour is trying to do.
Here's how it is supposed to shake out.
The guys who came into Cog Hill in the top 15 are already in the Tour Championship regardless of what happens this weekend. They're set. Therefore, the Tour is rewarding those guys by giving them the only real chance to win the FedExCup.
For the players ranked sixteen through thirty, they're basically just getting a free payday to show up in Atlanta. Mathematically, there is a chance that they could win the FedExCup, but there are better odds of the St. Louis Rams winning the Superbowl this year on Kyle Boller's arm. Instead, the reward is participating in a no cut, thirty player event for the same amount of money as they are playing for this week in a no cut event with 70 players.
That's great and all for the guys that make the Tour Championship. Who doesn't love free money by just finishing four rounds of golf without breaking the rules of the game? Vijay Singh had that simple task before him to pocket $10 million last year at East Lake, and he's one of the biggest advocates for a much simpler approach to the Playoffs.
His idea for the pinnacle of the playoffs? The guy that wins in Atlanta wins the whole thing. That's it. No points. No resets. No charts that resemble documentation from the IRS. As Al Davis said when he was not senile, "Just win, baby!"
I know I have come out as a bit of a fan boy for Steve Stricker and the prospect that he could take the FedExCup from Tiger Woods. I feel that happening would validate the concept more than the prior two runs. The optimal format, though, would still pose this possibility if Stricker could win the Tour Championship. If Stricker were to win this week and build a huge lead over the field, he would cede all of that good work as a result of the reset.
The Tour has to decide if it wants to reward performance in the Playoffs, be restrictive in how players move up, or go cutthroat with the Playoff finale.
The PGA Tour is doing a great thing by giving golf fans these deep field events well into September, but they need to take that extra leap in making the concept so easy to understand that even a caveman can do it. Or at least the players competing in it.
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The reset is the equailizer, but
should reflect the differences between the spots. For example, if after three phases, Stricker is leading Tiger by only 2 points, but Tiger is leading third place by 2,000 points, is it fair 3rd place receives only 250 reset points less than Tiger? In this example, I think first and second place should receive more of an opportunity to win, even if they do not win in Atlanta. If they weighted the differences between spots, it could look like this:
Stricker 2,500
Woods 2,250
Slocum 1,750
Harrington 1,700
Verplank 1,650
...from the land of pleasant living, Baltimore.
by One-Eyed Golfer Guy on Sep 11, 2009 8:45 AM EDT reply actions
you're still missing the forest for the trees
There’s that word “fair”. It doesn’t matter – we’re talking about sports. Was it “fair” that the Giants beat the Patriots after they went 18-0 ?. These are the rules of the game – people whined and complained after year one because nobody moved and nobody but the top guy really had a shot. Then they complained after year two because there was too much volitility and the winner was decided before the Tour Championship even started.
Complain complain complain.
And here we are again – you’re talking about “fairnes” and Ryan “glass half empty” Ballengee has already declared the entire process a failure before it is complete.
Here’s the thing – you both missed the big clue to the flaw in this plan – and it has nothing to do with Cog Hill. The flaw came out in week one when the 124th seeded player jumped all the way to #3. Slocum had two career Tour wins and was having a good enough season to keep his card, but it wasn’t a spectacular year…now he’s playing for $10 million as one of five guys who control their own destiny.
The flaw ? You can’t depend on the winner coming from the top 5. Even with Tiger as one of those 5. And why can’t you count on one of the top 5 winning ? Because it’s GOLF !!!! It’s the nature of the game. Any one of these guys can get hot and win the tournament – then the FEC winner and the $10 million are left up to a calculator.
Face facts – it doesn’t matter what scheme they come up with, there will always be a way for someone other than one of the top guys to win the tournament and make the award ceremony a bit awkward.
This idea was supposed to be based loosely on the NASCAR system – but the top guys aren’t set aside at the beginning of the last set of races. Having a tournament inside of a tournament just doesn’t work if you let the rest of the field play for the same prize as the top guys. NASCAR has 12 guys racing for points separately from the other 31. The race prize money is still there – but the top 12 guys are racing for a special prize – and that is what the PGA Tour has missed.
The Tour still has to decide what kind of SYSTEM they want – not just focus on getting attention for the last week. Is it a true playoff system ? Then the points can’t matter once the playoffs start. 124 guys start – 124 guys finish the first week and the top 100 move on to the next week. (too many guys – the number has to be lower – but that’s not important right now) Then the same thing for the next two weeks. Or – you start with whatever number you decide to start with and they play all 3 weeks to get the top 30 for the Tour Championship then it’s every man for himself.
OR – you use the NASCAR model – the top 12 or so guys earn points through the year – they are guaranteed a spot in all four tournaments and acrue points through all four weeks to decide the winner.
But until then – these silly “fairness” arguments are going to come up every year…and RB will wear that black cloud of doom and gloom, sweating it out over his calculator – incapable of enjoying having the top golfers in the world playing four weeks in a row.
(remember – it doesn’t matter what system they use – you and I don’t get a dollar out of it) :-D
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
Sometimes, court, I don't know if you only read
every other word or every other sentence. Fair has never entered into it. Leveling the playing field does NOT make a competition fair, it eliminates gross inequities. After that, talent will, or at least should, prevail.
Ryan and I are only discussing one small aspect of the Cup - the point reset. Neither of us have picked the whole process apart from week one in the regular season all the way to cashing the winning checks. In my case, I felt the reset was not well thought out and could be handled differently to reflect large point gaps.
...from the land of pleasant living, Baltimore.
by One-Eyed Golfer Guy on Sep 11, 2009 10:04 AM EDT reply actions
Fair, schmair.
The bottom line is the bottom line with the playoffs and the PGA Tour wants to be damned sure that they get every fan possible to tune away from college football Saturday and the NFL on Sunday in order to watch the artificial drama that will be a ten million dollar annuity. Nothing more, nothing less.
you think ? I get the feeling that most people are bored with the “big bucks” aspect. They tune in when Tiger is around on Sunday, and this was what it took for him to tee it up 3 or 4 more weeks after the PGA.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
Well, yes, there is that.
If you watched ESPN last night, it was Tiger and the 69 Stooges as far as their coverage is concerned.
by Charles Boyer on Sep 11, 2009 11:39 AM EDT up reply actions
I don’t think we’re going to get a “true” playoff system for one simple reason – TV ratings. A real playoff system has the possibility for upsets (I think that’s the reason it was set up so a 124 could make it all the way to 3 in one jump), but the playoffs would be a non-entity if Tiger and Phil didn’t have a chance to win at East Lake.
Personally, I’d like to see them expand the Tour Championship to 32 players and have five rounds of match play elimination to determine the winner, but that’s not going to happen.
Still, it would be more interesting if they had a “minor” bonus of, say $2 million after the BMW, then sent the top 30 to East Lake to play a straight no-cut, no points medal play tourney … just a winner-take-all for the remaining $8 million. That way, any of the top 30 could realistically win, but the TV brass would still be pretty much guaranteed that Tiger would be there.
Mike Southern
www.ruthlessgolf.com
I don’t understand the “minor bonus” idea. You mean for the points leader before the reset ?
Remember that the $10 million is just the winner’s portion of the prize pot – it isn’t winner take all. Fed Ex puts in something like $25 million with the remaining $15 million split up among the other 30 by their finish.
Oddly enough – there are 6 guys with understandable ways to win the FEC. If any of the top 5 win – they take the pot. If #30 wins and the entire field flips positions from where they started (1 to 30 finishes 30 to 1), then the 30th seed wins it all. Other than that, it takes an astrophysisist…or Ryan Ballengee…to figure out the other 24 spots. :-)
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
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