The money-making formula for the PGA Tour has grown depressingly
simple: Make sure Tiger Woods is on TV. If possible, make sure
Tiger plays head to head with Phil Mickelson, or maybe Vijay Singh,
in late-scheduled pairings on as many days of the golf week
(Thursday through Sunday) as possible.
This past week just concluded the introductory playing of the
Fedex Cup Playoffs in professional golf. The ostensible idea: To
hype up the excitement of the PGA Tour season with an extended
playoff series like baseball or basketball. You know. Those sports
where the playoffs are the only games anybody watches.
Golf has this one problem, though. You can’t make players show
up for tournaments, whether designated as playoffs or not. And the
more successful players tend to be those who don’t show up. They
make a schedule for themselves early in the year — so much play,
so much practice, so much rest, so much time for business
commitments — and they stick to it.
SO YOU THROW MORE MONEY AT THE PLAYERS. You enlist a sponsor who
will put up millions of dollars, including a $10 million first
prize for the overall playoff. Each tournament in a series of four,
on four consecutive weeks, has a $7 million purse. That makes each
tournament’s first prize about $1.25 million, as much as any of
golf’s four traditional major tournaments, the Masters, the U.S.
Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship.
But no, that’s not good enough. Tiger might still show up for
only two of the tournaments. For one thing, the four Fedex events
have been jammed into consecutive weeks immediately following two
of the biggest tournaments in golf: the PGA and the WGC Bridgestone
Championship (formerly known as the World Series of Golf). Tiger
never plays six weeks in a row. Tiger hardly ever plays three or
four weeks in a row.
So you stack the deck. Throughout the year, you award “Fedex Cup
points” for top ten finishes in regular PGA tournaments,
practically ensuring that Tiger Woods (who’s better than anybody
else) will lead “the Fedex Cup race” by the end of that year. Then
you seed players for the last four tournaments, with Tiger being
awarded 100,000 Fedex cup points in the “re-set” for the playoff
series. Everybody else, being mere mortals, gets commensurately
fewer points at the start.
That makes Tiger almost impossible to catch from the get-go.
AND YAY, HOORAY, WHAT DO YOU GET? Because you pair players
according to their Fedex Cup rankings, Tiger, Vijay, and Phil play
lead groups all four days for all four tournaments. Big TV ratings,
big ad dollars, big hype.
Only one problem. Tiger took one look at the seeding and decided
he needed (and could afford) a week of rest after winning the WGC
and the PGA in blistering Tulsa heat. Phil Mickelson had always
intended to skip the third tournament, and he did. Steve Stricker
won the first event, the Barclay’s, at Westchester Country Club, in
what turned out to be the most compelling competition of the month
as he faced down a red-hot K. J. Choi on a fierce and beautiful
historic golf course.
You’d have to call the rest of the series a letdown. Vijay Singh
decided to tinker with his swing and played badly, finishing
cut-64th-65th and still made it into the 30-man field for the final
Tour Championship (the seeding again). Charismatic Rich Beem made a
glorious early run, but finally couldn’t overcome his low seeding.
Tiger and Phil had a final-nine shootout the last day of the second
tournament, in Boston, which Phil won. Mickelson then disappeared,
playing poorly the rest of the way. Grizzled vet Mark Calcavecchia
hung in at dead last through the first two tournaments and played
his way into the final group the last day of the last tournament
with Tiger, and then faded. Zach Johnson shot a sparkling 60 on the
Saturday of the Tour Championship.
But of course Tiger won, and by a lot, and what did you expect?
The PGA Tour had set it up that way, and I think the whole golfing
establishment ought to be more than a little ashamed.
THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF TALK ABOUT “TWEAKING” the Fedex Cup to make
it better. Several players have griped that you ought to lose
points for failing to play a tournament in the series. A number of
commentators have said that the first tournament included too many
players, at 144 — the tour has only 125 fully exempt players. Phil
Mickelson, who likes his cash, has complained that the $10 million
deferred comp Fedex Cup first prize (it, and the other top ten Cup
prize money, is paid into the PGA Tour retirement accounts of the
individual players) ought to be paid on the spot.
But the worst problem is the seeding itself. Look, the New York
Yankees don’t get to win fewer games in the season-ending playoffs
than any other team, just because they pull the biggest TV
audiences. Golf, which has always prided itself on its
red-in-tooth-and-claw Darwinism — you win or you’re gone — has
given up its essence by seeding high-ranked players so they can’t
be beat.
So drop the seeding system. Start the series with 90 players. Go
to 70 for the second tournament, 50 for the third, then 30 for the
finals. Miss a tournament, you’re out.
But there’s a dirty little secret in top-ranked golf. It’s out
in plain sight. If Tiger doesn’t play, revenues go down. And Tiger
might not go for that arrangement. He might skip the whole
thing.
Well, news, commissioner Tim Finchem: From now on out, there’s a
very good chance Tiger will opt out of the Fedex Cup, entirely or
in part, no matter how you tweak it. He doesn’t need the money.
Heaven knows, he doesn’t need the point advantage. He’s proved a
point by winning the first one. But he’ll only go so far for the
hype.
Tiger Woods can arrange his own high-paid exhibitions. Matter of
fact, he does. The Tiger Woods Target Tournament, held last year at
Sherwood Country Club, was his alone, with an invited field. The
AT&T Tournament in Washington, D.C. this year was Tiger’s
event, co-sponsored with the PGA Tour. Tiger didn’t ask for, or
expect, any special advantage in either one.
Tiger Woods didn’t sacrifice his dignity and integrity for the
sake of a marginal television audience. Golf shouldn’t do it,
either.
