PGA TOUR announces changes that will further fan engagement, understanding and drama of FedExCup

[tcbrewba]

Imagine if the new rules were in place this year. You could have a scenario where Tiger Woods shot the lowest score at the Tour Championship but it wouldn't count as a win. How do you think the PGA Tour would look in that scenario?

[Darth Putter]

I love the idea. In the past, players had skipped playoff events and still won the FedEx Cup and had wrapped up the Cup before the last event. Can you imagine the Superbowl champion being determined before the game was played or the Patriots deciding to skip their first round of the playoffs and still winning the Superbowl?

 

Can you imagine, say the Broncos starting down 21-0 against the Bears in the Super Bowl?

 

Okay, I'd enjoy that, but still . . .

 

They "gave" the Bears Cutler and we know how THAT worked out!

 

[The Pearl]

I love the idea. In the past, players had skipped playoff events and still won the FedEx Cup and had wrapped up the Cup before the last event. Can you imagine the Superbowl champion being determined before the game was played or the Patriots deciding to skip their first round of the playoffs and still winning the Superbowl?

 

For me the expectation or comparison to playoffs in other sports in part of the problem, you can't have a "genuine" playoffs series in strokeplay golf.

 

Its a dilemma and I do understand where they are coming from but the handicap compromises the legitimacy of the Tour Championship as a golf tournament.

 

Would be interesting if playoff scoring was cumulative across all events. It essentially becomes a 12 round "super" tournament that spans 3 weeks.

 

After the first 4 rounds, cut to the lowest 90 players

After the next 4 rounds, cut to the lowest 50 players

The "cup" goes to the player with the lowest 12 round total

 

I think this is the only rational approach. Maybe even cut it to two tournaments...8 rounds.

 

The current format and the new format is just contrived Mickey Mouse BS. The wrap around season is Mickey Mouse BS also. The Tour's problem isn't the formats, it is that it is saturated. There are some many tournaments and the season is too long that it has become insignificant. The NFL has thrived because of the scarcity of the games.

 

Scarcity creates demand, saturation decreases demand.

 

The Tour should be done the weekend before the NFL begins and reappear sometime with the Hawaii swing so we can all drool and be excited for the Tour's return after several months and while we are all stuck inside. Put the PGA back in August and finish with the two playoff tournaments discussed above.

 

I would even throw a week bye or two during the season to stop the saturation.

[FootWedge16]

Imagine if the new rules were in place this year. You could have a scenario where Tiger Woods shot the lowest score at the Tour Championship but it wouldn't count as a win. How do you think the PGA Tour would look in that scenario?

 

It would be scrapped immediately.

[elwhippy]

It is a bit of a damp squib at the best of times. The course is visually dull. Giving the leaders a head start is just wrong. Can you imagine if Kevin Na or somebody similar was the leader before East Lake and the likes of DJ, Tiger and Rory were 28th, 29th and 30th...the TV would love that.

[bladehunter]

And everyone says the PGA is a much better organization than the USGA. This is horrible.

 

True. When your “ think tank “ makes the usgas “ think tank “ look good. Well...... Both tanks should have the lid sealed shut.

[80sFredriksson]

I like an accumalative score over the playoffs determining the fedex winner and still have the possibility for someone else to win each tournament. It would make more sense to me to let the regular season winners start a bit ahead on this list or give a chunk of the money based on reg season position.

[The Mad Bomber]

Handicapping a PGA event is the wrong way to go. The best other sports get is home field advantage. Maybe let golfers pick their tee times as a bonus for getting to the dance in first place, I don't know. This idea that a playoff needs to include a body of work is so stupid, I'm not sure how the Tour ever figured this could be a good idea. Make it to Atlanta, win to grab the Fed-Ex cup. Doesn't seem too hard.

[Pent08]

So apparently $10M wasn't enough, had to bump it up to $15M.

[mjtoal]

This is a terrible idea. They are handicapping the Tour Championship. Seriously?

 

Nobody can take a winner seriously if they win by a shot after a head start of 2. Tarnishes the event and makes the PGA Tour look ridiculous. I doubt any self-respecting player wants to win that way.

 

<Checks calendar.> Nope, not April 1st.

[MidwestGolfBum]

So apparently $10M wasn't enough, had to bump it up to $15M.

 

Well, as we all know, the 30 guys who played the best/most consistently over the course of the season are the ones really hurting for $5M more...

 

At some point, somebody had to have come up with this when drunk and nobody wanted to question it. In the end, it just seems like a way for the person who wins the FEC to also be the winner of the TC. Handicapping it is just going to make it dumb to watch for so many people, IMO, and will have the opposite effect of what they are trying to do.

[stickner]

Interesting.

[DFS PFD]

So apparently $10M wasn't enough, had to bump it up to $15M.

Absolutely obscene IMO, professional sports are out of control.

[cardoustie]

More special money? Spotting guys leads? A whole load of crazy is what I see

 

These tour execs get A LOT of money just in base salary and they (and their marketing consultants) come up with a program that a 3 year old chimp might regurgitate

 

Stop trying to be so "modern."

 

I think they're all UNDER PAR with some of this new stuff.

[MK7Golf21]

Why are people saying it’s handicapped? Pretty sure handicap doesn’t give the best player strokes, especially 10 of them

[DatSliceDoe]

A mess.

[PumaAttack]

I can't believe they're actually going through with that nonsense. It sounded like such an absurd rumor. Giving the leader a 10 stroke advantage on the field?! How is that fair in any sense of the word? Why is the PGA so hung up on making sure the Tour Championship winner also wins the FedEx Cup? Am I the only one that doesn't care if the two trophies go to two different people?!

 

What if players "protest" this new change by refusing to play/enter the playoff events next year?

 

Why do you care if they can go to two different?

 

its their season ending championship and their rules.

 

This outrage is baffling. People always talking how the TC is meaningless so the tour changes it up and now people are up in arms over the prestige and history of the precious Tour Championship....

[Darth Putter]

And everyone says the PGA is a much better organization than the USGA. This is horrible.

 

True. When your " think tank " makes the usgas " think tank " look good. Well...... Both tanks should have the lid sealed shut.

 

When your ability to sucker corporations and tv networks into paying vast sums of money for your product is this good, you don't need to be good at anything else.

[DavePelz4]

Did the PGA invite Diana Murphy from the USGA to chair this meeting over dirty martini's?

[MarkFromTheUK]

Whoever came up with this is an imbecile.

[FairwaysToHeaven]

Labor day weekend would allow a 5th day of golf if started on Thursday.

 

tournament 1 - cut from 125 to 70

tournament 2 - cut from 70 to 32

tournament 3 - thurs to sunday stroke play narrowed to final 4. Monday two rounds 18 holes each of match play with final championship round played in EST primetime on west coast

 

really disappointed in the changes. no one wants to see guys given a head start or someone outplaying others in the final week but coming up short because of some arbitrarily set stroke lead.

[DavePelz4]

So apparently $10M wasn't enough, had to bump it up to $15M.

Absolutely obscene IMO, professional sports are out of control.

 

Just think about the fact that Charlie Weis was paid just under $19,000,000 NOT to coach Notre Dame...and then Kansas paid him around $5,000,000 to NOT coach the Jayhawks.

 

I would have done it for a Mil 5.

[GMR]

If this doesn't work they can always try a new format that lets the leader coming into the week play off the ladies' tees while the guy in 30th has to play from 9k yards.

[SullGolf]

Quit screwing with the fall season to compete with football. Nobody cares. Have the season start in January, keep the PGA in August, put the top 30 money winners in the Tour Championship and be done after the Ryder/Presidents Cup. This wrap-around-season-fedex-cup-fake-playoffs stuff is ridiculous.

 

They already improved on that. Next year the Tour Championship ends on August 25, before the NFL starts.

[pheenomz4774]

My opinion, the current system is the best it's going to get, and it's bad, but that a fact of the situation and not the format. Lot of people are tired of hearing the "this tournament is important" message we've been beaten down with and if every tournament is supposed to be important, then no tournament is important.

 

They first told us the 4 majors were the most important things in golf, pay attention to those. Then they said:

- The Player's is kinda like the 5th major, you have to pay attention to that!

- We made 4/5 additional World Golf Championship's out of the tournaments, and one is match play, those are important too!

- Jack's tourney at Memorial is super important! Please pay attention to that

- Well if Jack's tourney is important, Arnie's tourney is important! Please come and watch that

- The Irish and Scottish Open are leading up to the Open Championship...links golf! Gotta watch those!

- The Houston Open (no sponsor), the St. Jude, and the one I can't remember in Texas are the last tourney to qualify for the Master's, US Open, and Open respectively. Gotta tune in!

- Waste Management! 16th Hole! Drunk People! Give us a watch!

- Wydham! Last chance to keep your tour card! Super important! Look over here!

 

Now it comes to the end of the year, and there are four more tournaments (soon to be three) they are begging us to watch by saying "THESE are really the ones you need to watch, FedEx cup PLAYOFFS!!"

 

The hardcore golf fan is going to watch if there are still interesting players in the field.

The average golf fan checked out after the PGA unless Tiger has a lead on Sunday.

 

There is no amount of tweaking the format that's going to change that.

[DavePelz4]

Had a minute to read the changes...can someone help me with the math?

 

After the first two events, you're in first and we're going to give you a LESSER chance to win based on PGA Tour math?

 

After the first two events, you're in second, third or 4th and we're going to give you a GREATER chance of winning based on PGA Tour math?

 

Seriously, let's give everyone a participation ribbon and let's go eat a GD Snack.

[canadaworm]

Maybe they can put venomous snakes in a few of the cups just for added viewing pleasure.

 

Finally somebody is making sense.

[chippa13]

I love the idea. In the past, players had skipped playoff events and still won the FedEx Cup and had wrapped up the Cup before the last event. Can you imagine the Superbowl champion being determined before the game was played or the Patriots deciding to skip their first round of the playoffs and still winning the Superbowl?

 

They basically have a 1st round bye every year. They never are in the wild card game and have won 5 Super Bowls.. playing well in the regular season helps

 

Playing in a historically BAD division helps too... but I digress...

 

Not a fan of this new format. Nope, not one bit. Now I care even less than I already did.

 

One of my brother's favorite football jokes is Belichick being so smart to schedule those AFC East games.

[BrianMcG]

Just because so many on WRX hate it probably means it’s a great idea.

[FootWedge16]

Just because so many on WRX hate it probably means it's a great idea.

 

If people that actually like golf enough to post on a golf forum think it's stupid and won't make the playoffs more interesting, then I seriously doubt this is going to bring any extra eyeballs from casual fans.