Commish Reality Distortion Field: "A lot of support for" Schedule, Q-School Changes.

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Someone actually asked Tim Finchem during a Waste Management Open stop-in if the 18th at Torrey Pines was unfair Sunday, all because a guy using poor judgement and juicy grooves spun a ball back into the lake. The Commish handled the question well before moving on to lots of euphemisms (schedule flow!) to discuss the controversial plan to change Q-School and turn the tour schedule into a year-round affair starting in October.

TIM FINCHEM:  Well, I'll give you the short version, and then we have people here on‑site that can give you the long version.  But it's been discussed for the last year and a half almost, and it's been written about, there's basically two things:  One, reshaping the qualifying process to come on the PGA TOUR with much more of a focus on the Nationwide Tour, part one; and then part two, if we do that, restart the season in the fall.  So the fall events would apply toward the following year in terms of Player of the Year, FedExCup points, Arnold Palmer Award and those kind of things.

It's taken on different‑‑ I won't go into all the details now because it's time‑consuming because there are a lot of details, it's taken on different directions and discussion over the last year.  It continues to be looked at and reviewed.  We've had a lot of player input.  We've had tournament input.  And we have a couple more meetings later in the next month.  It'll probably be reviewed again at our board meeting mid‑March.  If we go down that road in some fashion, it would probably be implemented in 2013, but I'm not sure about that at this point.

But it has the effect of strengthening the Nationwide Tour, and it has the effect of strengthening the fall events, as well.  It also has the effect of strengthening the FedExCup, and it has the effect of bringing to a tighter conclusion what a season is of the PGA TOUR competitively. 

And how about the West Coast Swing?

This year we had the FedExCup champion, then six weeks later we're still talking about the money title, and it would bring all that together, and then the votes for the Player of the Year would come right on the heels of the end of the actual season.

Uh, well that wouldn't have happened if the playoffs were contested in September!

We like that better from a communications standpoint and getting our fans involved in what a season is all about.  But we're not done with it yet, and I wouldn't presume anything at this point.  But we made a lot of progress in talking about a lot of the pieces and will continue that.

And about the prospects...

TIM FINCHEM:  Well, it's never a done deal until our board approves policy.  They have to approve policy.  I think I would characterize it as very possible.  There's a lot of support for it.  There's also a lot of questions which we continue to answer, and as we answer questions, we learn things.  So some of the underlying aspects of it are subject to change from what we've been looking at.  But it's changed a lot anyway in the last year.

I just don't want anybody to assume that we're necessarily going to do anything in some certain time frame just yet.  But we're working through it and we're involving all the stakeholders, title sponsors, tournaments, players, and if it's going to happen in '13, I would suspect it would come to a conclusion this spring.  And if it doesn't come to a conclusion, it might still happen later on.

Fixing problems that don't exist. Amazing.