PGA Tour tweaks FedEx Cup again
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The PGA Tour has made a good move in tweaking the FedEx Cup again, announcing today that changes in the season-ending run for $10 million will ensure that any golfer who qualifies for the 30-player Tour Championship can win the big prize.
The real question is whether that will make much of a difference.
During its first two years, the FedEx Cup race that incorporates four tournaments hasn’t come close to rivaling fan interest in major tournaments or the Ryder Cup. The viewing public simply hasn’t embraced the drama surrounding a race among millionaires for a $10-million annuity.
Golf, probably more than any other sport, relies on tradition for its gravitas, and the FedEx Cup simply hasn’t developed any of that yet. Perhaps it will at some point, but we’re not there now.
The first two years had all the suspense of an Alfred Hitchcock whodunit shown in reverse. Tiger Woods won the first FedEx Cup without even playing in one of the events, then Vijay Singh essentially clinched the title before the Tour Championship even began this year.
The rules have been changed to guarantee that each of the 30 players who qualify for the Tour Championship will have at least a mathematical chance of winning the big prize. A win by any of the top five seeds will guarantee the FedEx Cup title outright, while seeds 6-10 also will have an excellent chance of capturing the title with a victory.
There will still be a points system during the regular season that will determine which players get into the FedEx Cup playoff events -- the Barclays, Deutsche Bank Championship and BMW Championship -- but the overall system has been simplified. So at least most of the players will understand it.
The system will rely more upon results during the season than it did last year when Padraig Harrington’s poor results in the first two playoff events kept him out of the Tour Championship. No matter that he had won two majors.
It’s just that it might take time before golf fans really care enough to follow it. We’ll see.
-- Mike James
