The PGA Tour's newfangled end-of-the-season extravaganza is awash in logos, title sponsors and marketing ploys, but to bring the FedEx Cup to the masses, we need something simple and direct. We need a cheer.
Here, then, is the Official Cheer of the PGA Tour Playoffs for the FedEx Cup: Gimme a P! All right, so it's not the Wave, but the cheer clearly points out what's missing from the playoffs. There is no P. The FedEx Cup has provided lots of layoffs — from a starting field of 144 players at the Barclays to 120 last week at the Deutsche Bank Championship to 70 this week at the BMW Championship and 30 next week at the grand finale, the Tour Championship — but no playoffs.
Debate this point all you want, but after Phil Mickelson's two-shot win on Labor Day over Tiger Woods, Brett Wetterich and Arron Oberholser, we're halfway through the FedEx Cup and barely half of the pretenders have been eliminated.
Hey, guys, what's taking so long? We need something like what happened at the last Presidents Cup, at which the Americans found a Ping-Pong table in their team quarters, and Mickelson challenged Woods to a match.
"They played the first game: Tiger won," recalls U.S. captain Jack Nicklaus. "They played the second game: Tiger won. Phil said, 'I've got this buffet table behind me, and I can't swing. Switch sides with me.' Tiger said, 'Sure.'" (Mickelson, an ace at table tennis, loves to play curvy, heroic shots from impossible angles way beyond the end of the table — absolutely nothing like his approach to golf — and the buffet was cramping his style.) "So they switched sides, and Phil wins. Phil says, 'Let's play another one.' And Tiger says, 'Uh-uh. Two to one.' And they never played again."
That is a playoff.
That aside, last week several things started to go right with the FedEx Cup. Here's the bright side:
• The Fields A year ago not even a guarantee of more than $100,000 (for last place) could get Tiger or Phil to play in the season-ending Tour Championship. Phil didn't tee it up in any Tour events after August. This year the FedEx Cup accomplished one important goal — it brought together the world's top players for four straight weeks.
O.K., attendance hasn't been perfect. Woods skipped the series opener and drew fire. The fittest man in golf said he was too tired to play the Barclays, but whether Woods was sending a who's-your-daddy message to Tour headquarters or was simply too pooped to play after back-to-back wins at the Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship doesn't matter.
He showed up at TPC Boston in Norton, Mass., with his game face on, got himself into contention with a seven-under 64 in the second round and finished the week in third place, behind Mickelson, in the FedEx standings. Significantly, Woods was paired with Mickelson for three of the four rounds, including Monday's taut finale, which resulted in sellout crowds.
Ernie Els and Scott Verplank took a pass on the Deutsche Bank, but the Tiger and Phil Show made any absences irrelevant.
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