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.
• The Buzz It has taken all year, but the FedEx Cup has become the only topic of conversation in golf, even if most of the talk is about what needs to be changed. It's unanimous that the FedEx Cup needs to be tweaked, although no one agrees on exactly what should be modified. The Tour is open to suggestions.
"We welcome fans who have been sending e-mails and blogging," says commissioner Tim Finchem. "I encourage it. It's healthy. I'd rather have that than nobody paying attention."
• The Points Though convoluted and perhaps even unjust, the wacky scoring system is doing exactly what it was designed to do.
"Tiger understands better than anybody that it's all about high finishes — top five or better," says Steve Dennis, the Tour's top FedEx Cup number cruncher. "In the four-week series it's all about hitting home runs. If you want to win the FedEx Cup, you have to have a win unless you started as the first or second seed. Assuming nobody wins two of the first three weeks, we'll look up on Thursday in Atlanta (at the Tour Championship) and say, 'We have five or six guys who could win this thing — (Barclays winner Steve) Stricker, Mickelson, the BMW winner and the top two or three seeds.' That's who it ought to be: the guys who played well all season and the guys who played well in these four weeks."
• The Golf Fairly or unfairly, the success of the FedEx Cup ultimately will hinge on the quality of the tournaments, and so far, so good. Stricker birdied four of the last five holes to overtake K.J. Choi in Westchester, a dramatic finish that was a terrific show.
Golf doesn't get any better than Monday's Phil-Tiger showdown at the Deutsche Bank, and the Tour got lucky by having the game's two top-ranked players go head-to-head for three days. If their round on Saturday morning had been televised by Golf Channel, the FedEx Cup might've had a tipping point at the exciting par-4 4th hole, where Woods knocked his tee shot onto the green, then watched Mickelson one-up him by driving his ball even closer to the hole. Woods counterpunched by rolling in a 33-footer for eagle, while Mickelson had to settle for a two-putt. It was definitely a game-on moment.
When the Tour does go back to the drawing board, this is what needs to be fixed:
• The Schedule The problem isn't simply the four straight playoff events. After the British Open, the schedule basically mandates that the top golfers play seven times in nine weeks. Next year the four FedEx Cup tournaments will precede the Ryder Cup with no week off. (The Tour hasn't released its 2008 schedule, but insiders say the dates are etched in stone.) Therefore it's almost a certainty that Woods and Mickelson will skip at least one FedEx Cup tournament.
"Scheduling is the biggest issue," says Steve Flesch, who has played 13 of the last 14 weeks. "I'm kind of out of gas. You can't play this much golf and expect to play well. How many of the top players are going to come if they have to play six of seven weeks?"
On the other hand, Woods's using the Barclays as a bye week may have been the best thing for the FedEx Cup. If he had won at Westchester, he would've almost clinched the title.
"Tiger not playing kind of added more excitement," says Stricker, who tied for ninth at the Deutsche Bank and dropped from first to second in the FedEx standings. "All of a sudden three guys are ahead of him, even though he dominated the whole year. It doesn't seem right, but that's the system."
• The Timing The FedEx Cup has not yet caught the public's attention. With Woods missing the first week, television ratings were down. Even the Little League World Series clobbered the Barclays.
"I'm not displeased by the numbers," says Finchem, "but I'm looking for our ratings to go up in the next couple of weeks."
The Deutsche Bank ran into the start of the college football season and also had some bad luck. The marquee Tiger, Phil and Vijay Singh group got lots of airtime on Friday afternoon, but that was the day they didn't play well, shooting a combined four over par (with a worst-ball of 83). The next morning they were 23 shots better — 19 under — but the telecast didn't begin until after they had finished.
Despite what Finchem says, it's hard to see the ratings getting significantly better. The NFL kicks off this week, and tennis's U.S. Open finishes on Saturday and Sunday. The FedEx Cup's window of opportunity may already have passed.
• The Points Golf fans haven't caught on to the complicated system. For all the effort that went into creating and promoting the point standings, in the end the points list more or less mirrored the traditional money list.
"I don't understand it, to be very honest," says Nicklaus. "Frankly, if I don't know and I'm involved in golf, how is Joe Public going to know? That's a problem."
Resetting the points before the playoffs was particularly confusing. In short, the field was bunched with the runaway leader, Woods, pulled back closer to his pursuers in the name of a more exciting finish.
"They gave 143 guys a break and screwed one — Tiger," says Tour veteran Paul Goydos, who began the playoffs 51st in the standings. "If I would've won at Westchester, I would've passed Tiger on the points list. I don't know if that's a good thing."
• The Leftovers What do you do with all your FedEx Cup points once you've been eliminated? No, you can't put them toward a flat-screen TV.
Oberholser, who jumped from 67th to 29th in the standings, was asked if he'd prefer FedEx Cup points or Marriott points.
"I'd rather have Marriott points," he said, "but neither one gives you enough for what you expend."
No playoff and not enough payoff.
Somebody, anybody, gimme a P!
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