"The FedExCup thingy"

Thanks to reader James for this Norman Dabell Reuters story where you can just feel the excitement oozing from Ernie's lips...

Even though Els found Oakmont exasperating he still maintained the British Open at Carnoustie in 1999 was "the toughest major I've ever played".

After playing Carnoustie for next month's British Open, Els's schedule then really takes off in America -- whether he likes it or not.
   
"It's the start of the FedExCup thingy," he said. "I think I'm going to play six out of seven weeks and try and make some silly points."

Questions Raised About FedEx Cup; Tour Elated Someone Cares Enough At This Point To Have Questions

Ken Gordon in the Columbus Dispatch wonders about how this FedEx Cup thing will work (Golf World's John Hawkins declared it dead on arrival last week). If nothing else, perhaps the story raises money for John Rollins' charity of choice:

"Your career is based on majors," John Rollins said. "Quite honestly, if I won two majors this year, I could care less if I won the FedEx."

You can't tear down a brand like FedEx and not be fined. Come on John!

This is fun from Ty Votaw: 

"Whenever you create something new and different, there is no small amount of skepticism," he said.

Uh, we've moved beyond skepticism to apathy.

"You would think the Tour would place some value on Hartford's long tradition and effort, but the suits in Ponte Vedra Beach had their eyes on bigger money."

Bruce Berlet pens an SI My Shot reminding us that they are playing in Connecticut this week despite the Commissioner's bizarre effort to kill the event on the regular schedule.

I Hate To Be The Bearer Of Bad News...

...but if the FedEx Cup Playoffs started today (and oh how I know you can't wait), Chris Stroud would miss the final 144 by one spot.

The tension is building. 

Kostis: Fed Ex Cup "Failed" In Its Mission

Boy it's getting to where you can't get a positive thought out of Peter Kostis anymore! Peter, you must pick up that positive thinking book you recommended for me, because this kind of criticism is just so called for!

So far this season we have seen Paul Goydos, Charley Hoffman, Aaron Baddeley, Mark Calcavecchia, Boo Weekley and Scott Verplank all win PGA Tour events.

Don't get me wrong, each of these guys can play and deserved to win, but one of the selling points of the FedEx Cup was it would encourage better players to compete more often. It's failed in that mission. The allure of FedEx Cup points has not persuaded the game's best players to adjust their schedules; if anything, they have taken it easy in anticipation of a big push between the PGA Championship, the FedEx Cup playoffs and the Tour Championship itself. And that has opened the door for more and more players to not only get Top 10s, but also compete for wins.

The FedEx Cup has also created a greater separation between the Have's and the Have Not's amongst the tournaments. It was announced in April that the Masters will extend an invitation into the 2008 tournament to all winners of FedEx Cup events starting with this season's Verizon Heritage. Tournaments that are not a part of the FedEx Cup schedule—which is everything after the Tour Championship, which concludes September 16th—won't have that carrot to dangle in front of players who will not have qualified yet.

You know it doesn't bode well for the FedEx Cup when Norman Vincent Kostis is already declaring the FedEx Cup dead on arrival at the halfway point. And of course, his points are absolutely correct. Though they were made by many pundits long before the season even started.

"It's too early to call it a bust, but it's not too early to be concerned about its utter lack of buzz."

Golf.com's Gary Van Sickle gets all curmudgeonly about 2007's disappointments. Two that stood out for his crisp assessments:

10. The FedEx Cup The PGA Tour has tried to force feed us the points standings. The Golf Channel keeps cramming the points list down our throats. Still, no one cares. Nothing seems to be at stake. The race to the FedEx Cup playoffs? Hardly, since 144 players qualify. Which is everybody who is anybody. And why keep track of the points since they're just going to be reset for the playoffs? There is no drama, no interest and no reason to get interested in the FedEx Cup points standings yet. It's too early to call it a bust, but it's not too early to be concerned about its utter lack of buzz.

That's just so wrong. After all, if the playoffs started today, Anders Hansen would not be in them. Gary, you can't buy tension like that!

Moving on, I think this assessment is consistent with what we've seen in the past. Namely, that time tends to put over-the-top course setups into perspective...

3. The Masters It was disappointing that what I've been writing for the last five years was proven correct, that Augusta National with firm and fast conditions and some wind is the toughest golf course in the world. For three days, conditions were so difficult and greens so firm that nobody could make many birdies. Never have so many good shots turned out not so good. As a result, the best players weren't able to separate themselves from the pack. Skill was equalized. It wasn't until Masters officials saw the light and softened the greens for Sunday's final that we began to see the familiar birdies and eagles and hear the familiar roars from Amen Corner. Former chairman Hootie Johnson was right to lengthen and tough the course but went a bit too far. It doesn't need rough — or whatever quaint term they call it — and it doesn't need all those extra trees planted on 7, 11 and 15. For the first time in recent memory, the Masters came close to being boring for three days.

"The two parties love to squalk about each other"

The Journal News' Sam Weinman has a good feel for the Westchester CC-PGA Tour situation, and blogs about it and about being slightly scooped by Damon Hack in the New York Times:

I’ve been following the tour’s tenuous relationship with Westchester pretty much since I started writing about golf in the late 90s, and the same fundamentals still apply. The two parties love to squalk about each other—Westchester members lamenting the inconvenience of the event, the tour lamenting Westchester’s high-maintenance membership—and yet they can’t seem to live without each other.

In some ways, this deal is a match made in heaven. Westchester still has the prestige of hosting a PGA Tour event (a FedEx Cup playoff event no less!), but doesn’t have to do it on an annual basis. Meanwhile the tour can try to capitalize on other pockets of the New York market—I haven’t been to Liberty National but I’ve only heard good things—but can also consistently return to a traditional venue that many of its players still revere.

It seems the Tour's strategy is not to get away from Westchester or the Western but to give the playoffs more excitement by injecting fresh venues. I like the idea of placing an emphasis on architecture and varying setups, though I could also see the merits of returning to the same courses each year too in order to build "tradition." Thoughts?

"No one is talking it up"

The USA Today's Jerry Potter files this downer on the lack of interest in the FedEx Cup:

That's the problem PGA Tour executives have identified with the season-long points system that will set up a four-event season-ending playoff with a $10 million first-place prize: Neither the players nor the media are talking it up. No one, in fact, seems to be talking about the FedExCup except PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem.

Ken Schanzer, president of NBC Sports, said Tuesday that was to be expected. He has seen this scenario before, notably with Major League Baseball and NASCAR. NBC will televise the final three events of the season, or three of the four events that make up the playoff that ends in mid-September with The Tour Championship in Atlanta.

"All of what we say now is speculation," he says. "We won't know about the Cup's impact until we get through the season, and we may not know then."

Schanzer and NBC were involved when baseball expanded to division playoffs, and they were involved when NASCAR went to the Chase for the Nextel Cup, the model for golf's system.

"I told Bud Selig (baseball's commissioner) and Brian France (NASCAR's president) to get ready for a lot of criticism," he says of the first year of changes in baseball and NASCAR. "I told them at the end of the first year it will either work or it won't work. There's no way to know. All you can know is that it makes a lot of sense."

Hmm...not sure about this baseball analogy.

Those changes have worked for baseball and NASCAR, creating more interest. The PGA Tour is different because it has long been driven by the four major championships. The Masters is past, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship come in June, July and August, respectively.

Ric Clarson, the Tour's senior vice president for brand development, says two big events played in consecutive weeks — the Aug. 2-5 Bridgestone Invitational and Aug. 9-12 PGA Championship — will heighten focus because combined they'll award 15% more points.

"We're positioning them as the 15th and 16th games of the NFL season," he said. "Those games determine who gets in the playoff and who has home-field advantage."

Oh dear Lord.

Last week at The Players Championship, Finchem repeated his refrain that the system is a plus for the Tour, its players, sponsors and tournaments.

"We have to get people engaged in the playoffs," he says.

One positive sign for Finchem came Tuesday.

Oh? Uh, not really...

Corey Pavin said the FedExCup might give a lift to the July 19-22 U.S. Bank Championship, which is played in Milwaukee opposite the British Open. Players who don't qualify for the Open, he suggested, might come to Milwaukee to play for positioning in the FedExCup standings instead of taking the weekend off.

"If they need to play some more, they're going to add more tournaments in to make sure they get up as high on that list as they can get," said Pavin, the defending champ.

Yes, a very positive sign. I take it today was U.S. Bank Media Day? 

"Nobody is talking about it."

ESPN.com's Jason Sobel had better make sure he starts UPS after this column, because I think his Priority Overnight's might find themselves on the first plane to Darfur.

Chances are, he hasn't been hearing much lately, because nobody is talking about it. Halfway through the seasons of most other sports with a year-end playoff system, predictors and prognosticators try to interpret how first-half results will equate to those at the end of the season, how the standings may be rearranged in coming months.

Let's face it: Too many players will reach the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup playoffs this year. Luckily, the format is still a work in progress. At this time next year, perhaps, we could be discussing the race for the playoffs.

Where's The Brand Equity?

Doug Ferguson explains how Bay Hill and Memorial are spared the onslaught of FedEx Cup signage

Note that the PGA.com version of the AP notes column omits this anti-corporate, anti-brand equity story all together. Touching to see the PGA of America looking out for their good, good friends in Ponte Vedra.

FedEx Cup (Not) On Their Minds

Damon Hack (here) and Doug Ferguson (here) both cover the Washington D.C.-reduced field story, with not a single player expressing concern about the limited field eliminating a key week for some to pick up valuable FedEx Cup points.

Just amazes me how these players fail to grasp the real meaning of tour golf.

"The FedEx Cup hasn’t changed anything yet."

Peter Kostis really needs to pick up, oh I don't know, say, a book on the power of positive thinking.

I mean, how can one be so cynical:

The FedEx Cup hasn’t changed anything yet. Okay, maybe it's still a little too soon for this, but I don’t see how the much-hyped FedEx Cup has changed anything on the PGA Tour so far. The stars have not committed to playing a lot more events and TV ratings are not exactly surging upward.

As the Tour season plays out and we get into June and July the points race will likely take on more meaning, but right now, it’s business as usual out there. And please—quit telling the winner each week in the press room that his most important accomplishment was gaining 4,500 FedEx points! His most important accomplishment was beating 143 other players!

Peter, think positively. It's The Secret!  

Jobe's Return

Doug Ferguson has the surprising story of Brandt Jobe, who is making his season debut after slicing off the tips of his fingers in a freak accident. And after this remark, he also should expect to see a case of PGA Tour wine on his doorstep:

"It wouldn't be that big of a deal if this were a normal year,'' Jobe said. "But with the FedEx Cup and everything, you probably have to be 80th to have any chance of winning it. I'm already two months behind.''

"That's exciting (laughter)."

We've got a new FedEx Cup streak going. For the second straight week Joan Alexander has noted a player's FedEx Cup point pickup, and once again it led to a brand-tarnishing reaction.

From Geoff Ogilvy's post WGC final press conference:

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Geoff, thank you for joining us in the media center for a few minutes at the Accenture Match Play Championship. I know you're disappointed right now, but you've got to be really proud of yourself for the way you've played in this tournament and as far as you've come.
Along with your second place finish today, you earn 2,835 FedExCup points.

GEOFF OGILVY: That's exciting (laughter).

"With golf, less meant more."

In the post International stories, it's interesting to note this first (and inevitable?) look at how the Tiger effect now comes with as many negatives as positives. Bob Harig on ESPN.com:

But the problem with such deals is there is no negotiating when it comes to the $5.3 million purse. The players still get paid the same. And the advertising units assured to be bought on Golf Channel and NBC as part of the network contract with the PGA Tour must still be paid. TV takes no discount. The local tournament organizing committee, a nonprofit organization, still has to pay its bills, but with less money coming in from the title sponsor. So it gets squeezed, making it more difficult to give money to charity.

Sponsoring a regular PGA Tour event costs in the neighborhood of $7 million per year. That money covers a portion of the purse, a television advertising commitment, a fee to the PGA Tour and to the tournament. Spread that out over the six-year length of the network contracts, and you're talking about $42 million or more.

It is a hefty price, especially given the modest television ratings. Those small numbers -- usually in the 2 million-to-3 million range for a weekend network telecast -- were always justified because they were reaching the "right" kind of people … i.e. those with disposable income. With golf, less meant more.

But as the price has kept going up, those company executives began looking at the numbers more closely. And some of them have started to say that enough is enough -- especially if Woods doesn't play.