Why the PGA’s FedEx Cup is Empty

As I have said lots of times over the past few years, I have been a huge advocate of a season-long points race for the PGA Tour that would be modeled after the compelling Race for the Chase on the Left Turn Circuit (aka NASCAR).

And with the announcement of the television new deal for the PGA Tour, it was revealed that my prayers were going to be answered in the form of the FedEx Cup. The Cup race would lead to a four-event playoff that would culminate in a huge payday for the champion at the TOUR Championship. It seemed that my golfing fantasy would come true.

But as I have found out more about how the FedEx Cup is shaping up, the more discouraged I have become about the potential value of this series. First, I found out that a player could win all four major championships and hypothetically not be guaranteed to win the FedEx Cup.

To me, at least, it would seem that if someone could pull off the Grand Slam in a calendar year, that this golfer would win the FedEx Cup, be anointed Golfing King for Life, and receive $100 million. Given the ego of PGA Tour Commish Tim Finchem, though, and his man-crush on the Players Championship, I could see how this circumstance would happen.

This week, though, we found out some more preliminary information on how the points system would actually be structured for next season. From Golf Digest's John Hawkins, we get some of the details:

1. All "regular" tour events will award a total of 25,000 points. The World Golf Championships will award 26,250, with the four majors and the Players Championship worth 27,500.

Here's the first set of problems. This point layout seems to not consider field strength at all in determining points to be awarded. Any PGA Tour fan knows there is an absurd disparity between so-called "regular" PGA Tour events. This week's PGA Tour event, the Bank of America Colonial, is a much better event than the Honda Classic in terms of prestige, field strength, and overall value to the average Tour player. Yet, in the grand scheme of this FedEx Cup, they are considered equal? That seems like a travesty.

Further, if you had to attach a value to the four major championships in relationship to the other Tour events, you would almost certainly consider the majors to be at least 110% of the value of a normal event. But, in the FedEx Cup, the major championships are only worth 10% more than a regular PGA Tour event. You mean to tell me that the Zurich Classic of New Orleans is that close in value to the Masters? That's a joke.

Even more than that, the ego of the PGA Tour really comes out in this point structure. The World Golf Championships events are a shell of their original intent and have devolved into guaranteed paydays for President's Cup and Ryder Cup team members. There are no cuts and the fields are especially small. But, somehow, there are extra points awarded for these events on the FedEx Cup schedule. We'll return to the WGC events later.

Also, the FedEx Cup has given the PGA Tour an artificial opportunity to once again shove the Players Championship down our throats as the "fifth major." Vomit. By awarding the same number of points for the Players and the four real majors, the PGA Tour has attempted to elevate the importance of the Players to that of the major championships. We have been hearing from the Tour for years how the Players should be the fifth major.

I get the message, but it is beyond ridiculous that the PGA Tour has to institute its egotistical opinion of its best tournament into the FedEx Cup system. Until the rest of the golfing world recognizes the Players Championship as a legitimate major championship, it should be considered as a "regular" event.

Just think — that's the first bullet point! It gets worse, though, with bullet point number two:

2. The winner of each tournament will receive 18 percent of the total points — the same percentage as a standard purse breakdown. All players who make the cut will receive points.

On the surface, this might not seem like a very relevant point. But, think about the implications of this statement for a moment. The winner of each tournament receives the same percentage of the point pool as they do from the purse pool. This simple calculation for determining the point distribution of each event, in effect, makes the FedEx Cup points race into a de facto money list.

My whole point behind backing the concept of the PGA Tour playoff system was to create a new system of evaluating a golfer's season that would encompass a lot of the things that the money list misses. The money list does not consider a wide variety of issues that are important to golfers and golf fans. Think about it. The money list does not consider the following:

a) Average money per event — There are a number of players high up on the money list that play way more often than others and make a lot of money on the volume of their schedule alone. Adam Scott and Lucas Glover are 18th and 19th, respectively, on the money list. But, Scott has earned his $1.5 million in just eight events, while Glover has played nearly double the number of events (15). If you break out money per start, Glover would be significantly lagging, but he is considered equal with Scott on the money list.

b) Strength of field — As a player, you can place fairly well in a large number of second-tier events and wind up at a fairly high level on the money list at the end of the season. Every year, several players sneak into the Tour Championship on the basis of playing well in some mediocre events down the stretch. Talk to Charles Howell III about his play toward the end of 2005 and how that locked up his birth in the Tour Championship. His play in the weaker fall stretch of events gave him enough money to creep into the field when he was not one of the best players on the Tour last year.

c) Importance of winning — Several years ago in 2002, David Toms had a fantastic season and finished fourth on the money list. But guess what? He never won an event. A player can hypothetically finish very well in the money list despite never winning an event. This diminishes the value of a win on the money list and makes each event look weak in the grand scheme of the season. The Tour must balance the desire to create continuity through the season while making each individual event appear as singularly important.

On top of those three points, I would like to return to the World Golf Championships events. The money distributed in these events is usually larger than that of average PGA Tour events, but is distributed to fewer players. For example, in last year's WGC Bridgestone event, Tiger Woods took home 20% ($1,300,000 out of $7.5 million) of the prize pool for his win. The last-place finisher, Jyoti Randhawa, made approximately 0.5% of the pool.

Compare this to a normal PGA Tour event. This week at the Bank of America Colonial, Tim Herron picked up 18% of the $6 million prize pool. The last guy to make the cut, Bill Haas, earned 0.2% of the total purse this week. So, there really is not a dramatic difference in points at the top. But, there is a significant difference as you get away from the medal podium positions. On top of that, when you factor in the additional 1,250 points per each World Golf Championships event, these gimmick events give an unfair advantage at the start to those who get in the field.

Even more than that, all of the major championships have a cut and players who qualify do not automatically make money. As a result, half of the field that qualifies for the much more prestigious major championships do not get any points while players that get into WGC events can play terribly and still earn more FedEx Cup points than they normally would if they barely made the cut at a "regular" Tour stop. Yet again, the PGA Tour puts its own events on a subtle pedestal through its proposed points system.

So, with all of that in mind, the PGA Tour should not make the money distribution the lone determinant for the FedEx Cup. To do so is lazy, unimaginative, and unfair to a number of superior players. It is a slap in the face of the golf fan that is looking for a measure of success that is a bit more representative of an entire season of play for an individual golfer. This point distribution just does not appear to accomplish that — not even close.

The last key point of contention, still under discussion, is the way that the culminating series of events will qualify players and how many golfers will make the field for the Tour Championship. Current indications show that the Tour is going back and forth on how small they want the field to be. It could range between 20 and 60 golfers making the final field of the year that matters.

My preference would be closer to that 20 number. The whole point of a playoff system is to eliminate mediocrity and to showcase the sport's absolute best, on top of giving the best performers of the season an opportunity to make a ton of money. By allowing more golfers to have a shot at the biggest payoff of the year, the Tour again caters to mediocrity as it already does with the purse distribution. If the Tour continues this trend in the FedEx Cup race, then nothing has really changed at all.

The PGA Tour cannot introduce the FedEx Cup with these proposed guidelines. It comes across as lazy, uninspired, and catering to mediocrity. In order for the FedEx Cup to mean anything at all, the Tour must fundamentally change two things.

First, the PGA Tour must redistribute the way that prize money is awarded for individual tournaments. Winners should receive closer to 25% of the total prize money and top-10s should actually be rewarded more than they are now. Making the cut should no longer be good enough on the PGA Tour. This will inspire struggling players to play more often to make their livelihood and also encourage players that are not able to crack the top 20 to play more often if they want real paychecks.

Otherwise, the Tour will continue to reward mediocre play and cater to a base of players that are aching to protect their piece of the pie that they have secured because of the brilliance of a select few golfers — the supposed Big Five or Six. Well, second- and third-tier players have had theirs for long enough and they now need to be brought back to reality. Play well and you can have a chance at some real money. Otherwise, you can subsist.

Second, the FedEx Cup points race must be redesigned to consider strength of field. The FedEx Cup cannot become a de facto money list. Golf fans are not happy that the sport current pays out so much money to B- and C-list golfers. If the FedEx Cup rewards those golfers in the same way that the prize distribution does, then the Tour will fail to create buy-in from fans for this concept. Fans have already begun to check out from the game for a variety of factors, including this one. The Tour cannot present a solution that is merely smoke and mirrors of the same old way of doing business. That will make the FedEx Cup worthless and fail to achieve any of the goals it had.

In the end, the FedEx Cup (and, by extension, the PGA Tour) must respond to the logistical problems that the current Tour faces when it comes to money distribution, tournament field of strength, and schedule volume for individual players. It appears that the proposed structure of the FedEx Cup fails to meet any of those concepts and also propagates the failures of the existing structure and the pitiful ego of the PGA Tour concerning its own events.

The Tour must drop its ego, stop insulting fans and top-tier players, and actually introduce an original concept for the FedEx Cup, or it will actually make the sport worse off in the long run. The FedEx Cup was a gamble to begin with, but given the current indications of how it will look in practice, it looks like it's dead money.