“You’re going to start seeing some of the best players rarely between next week and March"

The David Zalubowski AP photo accompanying Karen Crouse's New York Times story showing Henrik Stenson says all you need to know about the energy top players were exuding at Cherry Hills, even with a robust energy delivered by Denver's great golf fans.

But gee, who could have seen this calendar year thing not turning out so hot?

The argument has been made that at least we get people playing this year when they would not normally have been playing big events. Even if the way we do it appears flawed and not particularly compelling. Some countered that you can't play year-round without consequences to body, mind and fan interest. But most of all, why have people playing when eyeballs are elsewhere at the expense of the season when the most eyeballs are on golf (late January, February, March, April)?

Tim Finchem's vision has been lauded and was co-designed with top players, who wanted the PGA Tour season to end in August so they could play elsewhere in the fall. They all got their wish and now the architecture of calendar-year golf doesn't look so hot, as Crouse lays out in her NY Times story quoting several players.

The unintended consequence of a bottom-heavy schedule, in which two majors, a World Golf Championships event and four playoff events are crammed into the season’s final nine weeks, is that it is going to hurt the top. Don’t be surprised if players disappear between October — when the season starts anew — and the Florida swing in March.

“You’re going to start seeing some of the best players rarely between next week and March,” Ogilvy said.

He added: “No one wants to feel sorry for us, because this is an amazing thing we get to do. But if they want us to play our best in six or seven or eight of the biggest tournaments of the year in a 10-week stretch, it’s just too much.”

Ernie Els closed with a 67 to finish tied for 16th at five-under. Els, 44, missed qualifying for the Tour Championship by 11 places, but he could not summon the energy to be disappointed. This was his ninth consecutive tournament, dating to the Scottish Open.

Looking ahead, Els said, “We need a break somewhere because next year is the Presidents Cup in Korea, the majors, the Olympics are coming up ...”

I'm betting the 2015 Presidents Cup may be the turning point. A few eligible players might skip it, and that will be conveniently followed by the final year of Tim Finchem's commissionership when he travels to events and they give him rocking chairs made out of all grandstands. At that point the next Commissioner will have a scheduling mess to fix. There may be openings in the form of television contract opt-outs or reworkings of deals or normal sponsorship comings and goings. And maybe by 2019 it'll all be sorted out. But until then, let the oversaturation continue!