The PGA Tour released its 2009 schedule with no earth-shattering changes last week, but it remained mum on its biggest failure of the last two years, the embattled FedEx Cup.

As of last week, the party line was that the Tour Policy Board had "favorably received" the framework of the new and hopefully improved 2009 FedEx Cup, but "no action was taken pending further review and discussion with sponsors, network media partners and players."

"The Policy Board will reconvene via teleconference," the Tour's press release added, "at which time final approval will be sought. Final action is expected prior to Thanksgiving."

Here's how a recent conversation went between GOLF Magazine's Cameron Morfit and Steve Flesch, a member of the 16-man Players Advisory Council in 2008.

GOLF: No one seems to be able to agree on what the FedEx Cup should look like.

STEVE FLESCH: Let's say this: We've tweaked it twice in two years, and being on the PAC, we've seen tons of scenarios with points. The first year, guys complained they couldn't make a move in the playoffs; the second year, we reset the points and made the playoffs so volatile that guys complained they moved so much, and then the Tour Championship didn't mean anything. But let's be honest here, the Tour Championship hasn't meant anything for a number of years. By that time it's just kind of a free payout to 30 guys.

People are starved for football that time of year, whether it's college or pro. The Tour moved it up to accommodate Tiger and Phil, who wanted the year to end earlier, but now we see that they're taking the chance to go abroad and collect appearance fees in Europe and Asia and wherever. So we're like, did we really achieve what we wanted here? Because now they're just going abroad and playing, so they're really not shutting down their year like they said they were going to. Last year Tiger played six of seven weeks in a row including his tournament right before Christmas, whereas during the year, during the regular Tour, he never plays more than two [straight weeks]. Then we threw the off-week in this year, which I don't think was very popular except with people playing in the Ryder Cup. I don't know if I'm answering any part of your question here.

GOLF: When the objective is to maintain interest in the Tour Championship, how does the Tour create a system where the FedEx Cup is either decided before the Tour Championship, like this year, or over for all intents and purposes, like in 2007? It's almost as incompetent as the LPGA's waffling over the English language issue.

SF: I voiced this to a lot of our top brass that we have the PAC meetings with: After two years we haven't gotten it right. FedEx is putting all this money in, and Coca-Cola needs to get its bang for its buck at the Tour Championship, which it hasn't been getting. I said, "If we don't get it right the third year, we're going to look like fools." At our PAC meeting in Vegas we asked the questions, how can we make it so the public understands the points race, and how can we make the last tournament mean more?

GOLF: What about making the entire Fall Series mean more? There were so few fans at one fall tournament last year it was compared to a club championship.

SF: I think we need to give our fall more value than just the race for the top 125. You have so many big tournaments in an eight-week stretch, by the time we get to our fall schedule the intensity is lost.

GOLF: This is the result of the Tour shortening the schedule for the top guys.