Commish Talks Player Utilization Ratios Of FedEx Opportunities

Numerous stories noted the big takeaway from Commissioner Tim Finchem's state of the tour presser: the tour will be taking yet another look at caller-inspired rules violations even though (A) it's the one bit of controversy Commissioner Monk embraces, and (B) it's the one sign an audience of any size is watching the playoffs.

So nothing will change. Players will commit violations.  HD will reveal violations they didn't know happened. Players will pat themselves on the back for calling penalties on themselves. And Tiger will have more run-ins with the rules because he's on television more than anyone.

Finchem is smarter than most of us and he knows the second you put a rule that says no outside observer can point out a rules violation, the integrity of the rules will be undermined because we'll have a long list of penalties that should have been given out, but were not.

In other words, a situation much more toxic than the one we have now.

As for Tuesday at East Lake, you are more than welcome to read 4855 words of the Commish and press questions--and that's just the part before Peter Jacobsen arrived to collect his Payne Stewart Award.

Or you can take Helen Ross's summary of the state of the tour, which as you might suspect, is very upbeat, with loads of numbers from the Commissioner except those top-secret playoff ratings (they're so big they keep them secret to avoid a nationwide outbreak of aneurysms).

But since we can't get those TV ratings, we can at least get some numbers confirming that the players do indeed believe in the FedExCup and its $40 million in bonus money. Shocking stuff here.

On how the FedExCup has been accepted by the players: "99.1 percent of the (Playoffs) starts by players that were available to players have been actually utilized. Of the 975 opportunities, 966 have been filled. It's an indication of the very robust interest, support, and enthusiasm the players have for this competition. And I think, as with the fans, it continues to grow."

Not that anyone is counting or anything.

On the debut of the Web.com Tour Finals: "I must say in this first year we're off to, I think, a very, very solid start. The quality of the golf courses in the finals, the juxtaposition of the 126 to 200 from the PGA TOUR against the top 75 off the Web.com Tour money list has, I think, proven to be very interesting to fans. Our galleries have been good at those events, and we've gotten good results on television."

Uh, how many more weeks do we have of the Web.com Tour Finals?

And the Commissioner's tortured take on fans phoning in rules violations:

On whether the TOUR would ever decide to not take calls from fans about potential penalties: "Well, we've been talking about it and looking at it over the years. I think twice we've actually got pretty serious about it. It's not just one thing. It's sort of three or four different ways to look at it starting with one fundamental, which is disqualification reasonable for signing a card wrong when you didn't intentionally do anything?
 


"Going from there to what's a reasonable point to accept outside information? Is it better to have some sort of limit on it? If you don't learn about something before X time. All the other sports close their books a little quicker than we do, so to speak. But there's two sides to the story. I mean, it's not an easy argument one way or the other.  I think it's cumbersome and difficult and awkward sometimes. On the other hand, sometimes it's pretty interesting to the fans. ... But we seem to have three or four of these things this year. So we'll probably be taking another harder look at it after we get done with the season."

Eh ehmmm...Tim, the season starts again in a few weeks.