"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."
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