FedEx Cup Improvements Could Add Excitement to Golf's Playoffs

by Julian Spivey
When the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs began last week at the Barclays Tournament ESPN Radio’s “Mike and Mike in the Morning” co-hosts Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic had an interesting conversation on their show about how even golf fans don’t seem to be particularly interested in the sport’s version of a playoff format.

The PGA Tour instituted the FedEx Cup playoffs in 2007 as a way to try to keep fan interest in the sport up after the fourth and final major of the season, the PGA Championship. The playoff format includes a season long points system that few fans (and even some golf media members) seem to understand and a four tournament playoff that shortens the field down each week until the top 30 in the points fight it out in the Tour Championship to win $10 million dollars.

Despite fielding the 125 best golfers on the tour and an incredibly wealthy $10 million payout few fans seem to get as excited about the golf playoffs as fans in other sports. The problem with golf is that it has so many big events during the course of the season with the four majors (Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship) and the Ryder Cup every other year that the playoff just doesn’t seem to mean as much.

The $10 million payout is huge, but as Greenberg and Golic brilliantly pointed out on their morning radio show last week it’s unlikely any golfer would rather win the FedEx Cup title than say the Masters or British Open. And, so it’s hard to get even halfway interested golf fans really hyped about the FedEx Cup playoffs.

Another thing that hurts the FedEx Cup is it’s frequently won by very good golfers, but not necessarily the kind of golfers you would consider among the very best in the game or the type of names that bring about huge television ratings. Tiger Woods is the only golfer to win the title twice, but names like Bill Hass, Brandt Snedeker and Billy Horschel just aren’t going to entice the casual fan and even some bigger fans of the game to really tune in or get excited – especially when these events coincide with the beginning of both the NFL and college football seasons.

There are some ways that the PGA Tour could improve the FedEx Cup playoffs though.

Make the point system more simplistic so everybody could understand it. It’s a small thing, but could make a lot of difference. NASCAR’s point system used to be harder to understand than it is today (although nowhere near the level of the FedEx Cup standings), but a few years ago the sport made it extremely simplistic and in doing so actually made things more fair and now fans know how many points each driver will receive for each finishing spot in a race. It makes watching the events more enjoyable and certainly less confusing.

The biggest thing the PGA Tour needs to do is enforce its athletes to show up for every event or face elimination. Rory McIlroy, the current No. 1 player in the World Golf Rankings, didn’t have to attend the Barclays Tournament this past weekend, because missing the tournament wouldn’t eliminate him from the playoffs. A playoff system where the athletes in it don’t actually have to compete in every event to win the championship seems ridiculous. The PGA Tour should mandate that all 125 players make the first tournament to remain eligible to win the playoffs and the $10 million. The playoffs have been won in the past by golfers who didn’t even appear in the first tournament. In fact, the eventual FedEx Cup champion has only won the first tournament (the Barclays) once in the eight year history of the playoffs with Vijay Singh doing so in 2008.

Before we get to another aspect of a playoff system that the PGA Tour should look into implementing let’s discuss another change that golf might need to look into. Jordan Spieth became the No. 1 ranked golfer in the world two weeks ago after his runner-up finish at the PGA Championship, but lost that No. 1 ranking after missing the cut at the Barclays. McIlroy regained the No. 1 spot despite the fact that he didn’t even swing a club this past weekend. That seems asinine, doesn’t it?

Back to the improvements the FedEx Cup could make. This one would throw major excitement into every round of the playoffs, but I’m sure would also be controversial. Jordan Spieth is very likely going to become the PGA Tour Player of the Year (Jason Day could potentially steal it from him by winning the playoffs), but he failed to make the cut at the first tournament of the playoffs. I think that should be an automatic elimination from the playoffs. Some would argue that eliminating a golfer of Spieth’s stature because of a missed cut would hurt the playoffs more than help them – and that makes sense as far as TV ratings and even fan interest goes – but think about the intensity and excitement it would make for cut day at these playoff tournaments. The winner of a playoff format should always be the best team or athlete throughout the playoffs and missing a cut doesn’t exactly scream “champion.” Only two of the FedEx Cup tournaments actually have cuts, but it would still make the first two tournaments even more exciting to watch.

These three changes: an easier to understand point system, mandating all eligible compete in every event, and automatic eliminations for missing cuts would build some much needed excitement to the FedEx Cup playoffs. But, you could just as easily argue the fact that golf doesn’t need a playoff system, because it’s just never going to compete with the major tournaments throughout the year.

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