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Sunday afternoon at the TPC Boston gave golf fans what we've been craving all season: Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, paired together and playing well with a tournament on the line. It was exciting and fun to watch. And during the battle down the stretch, no one cared about the FedEx Cup point standings.
With the Barclays and the Deutsche Bank completed, the playoffs head to Chicago's Cog Hill Golf Club for the BMW Championship. Sixty-six of the top 70 players in the points standings (Mickelson, Padraig Harrington, Paul Goydos and Bernhard Langer are skipping the event) will compete in a no-cut shootout to determine which 30 will advance to the Tour Championship in Atlanta.
So what have we learned so far?
1. The playoffs are clearly not great, but the concept of a playoff system in golf has possibilities. For that, Commissioner Tim Finchem and the folks at the PGA Tour deserve credit. The end of the season had always been a slow crawl into obscurity with the NFL, college football and baseball playoffs taking center stage. A playoff system can add meaningful events and give fans a few more glimpses of the game's best players.
2. Marquee pairings draw interest. Duh! People have been more excited about the pairings than disappointed about the withdrawals. At the Barclays we got to see Mickelson, Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk play together for two days. At the Deutsche Bank it was Mickelson, Woods and Vijay Singh. Putting the points leaders together at the start of the tournament generates a buzz on Thursday and Friday that spills over into the weekend. A good idea long overdue.
3. You can't have top players skipping events. Tiger Woods skipped the Barclays, saying he was tired after winning the two previous weeks' events. The Sunday Nielsen TV rating was 2.1, which was lower than the 3.5 of that day's Little League World Series finale between Warner Robins, Ga., and Tokyo. And now Mickelson has pulled out of the BMW Championship. Enough said.
4. The system itself is too long and too complicated. On numerous occasions this season, players chuckled when asked by members of the media if they understood the FedEx Cup system. True, golf fans are starting to get a feel for it, but the casual sports fan has no clue how this thing works. If one of the goals is to capture more people's interest, you have to make it easy for everyone to understand how the playoffs work.
5. Too many people qualify. There hasn't been a lot of talk about this, but at least 19 of the 144 players who made the playoffs this year will not be fully exempt for the 2008 PGA Tour season. That's not right.
6. You can't have a year-end playoff if the year doesn't end. There are seven PGA Tour events after the Tour Championship, so is the season really over?
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