By JEFF RUDE
Senior WriterAll 30 players at the season-ending Tour Championship will have a mathematical chance to win the FedEx Cup after the nine-person PGA Tour Policy Board unanimously ratified recommended playoff changes Tuesday. That eliminates the possibility of another anticlimactic FedEx finish at the Tour Championship as in the first two years of the season-long points competition.
Under the anticipated setup for FedEx Year 3, any player in the top five entering the final week would claim the Cup with a victory at the Tour Championship. Anyone farther down in the top 10 would have an excellent chance of taking the Cup by winning at East Lake in Atlanta.
The assurance of final-week drama was achieved by two key changes in the points system:
• Points will be reset after the third playoff, the BMW Championship, instead of before the playoff opener, The Barclays, as in 2007-08.
• Points in the four postseason events will be five times higher than in the regular season.
“We feel the system sets up nicely,” Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said via news teleconference after the meeting. “Players were consistent in thinking it shouldn’t be over until Atlanta, a lot of guys should be in it at the end and the regular season should matter. I think it will be well received by the players.”
The structure has been simplified through significant reduction of points awarded at tournaments and at reset. Regular-season victories will be worth 500 points (down to one point for 70th place) and playoff wins worth 2,500. (Victory in the four major championships and The Players receives 600 and a World Golf Championship win 550.) The reset will award 2,500 points to the No. 1 seed entering the Tour Championship.
The points change still ensures what Finchem calls somewhat of a “homefield advantage” entering the playoffs and will help assure that the season’s top players reach the finale. Still, the Tour says that with playoff points quintupled, more dramatic moves toward the top will be possible at the first three playoffs.
Double-major winner Padraig Harrington didn’t reach the Tour Championship after missing two cuts in the playoffs. Under the new structure, Harrington would’ve finished fourth in regular-season points and qualified for the TC. Players missing cuts in the first two playoffs won’t be hurt as substantially as in 2008.
“But positioning yourself for the Tour Championship in those first three is very important,” Finchem said. “And then at the Tour Championship, we have a wide-open competition. We like the way it accelerates.”
This year, Vijay Singh won the first two playoff events and needed only to complete 72 holes at East Lake to secure the FedEx Cup and its $10 million top bonus payout. The season-long competition will offer $35 million in bonus, and the four playoff purses will total $30 million.
Field sizes in the first two playoffs will be reduced slightly under the new FedEx plan to make the playoffs “feel more special,” Finchem said. The Barclays field will have 125 (down from 144) and the Deutsche Bank Championship 100 (down from 120). The BMW and TC will remain the same at 70 and 30, respectively, and players 126-150 will receive retirement-fund credits.
The Tour also announced that there will be a week off between the penultimate BMW Championship Sept. 10-13 and the Tour Championship Sept. 24-27. Finchem said players felt strongly about having that breather during a busy stretch run.
The entire 2009 schedule will be announced in a couple of weeks after details regarding one Fall Series event are worked out, Finchem said.
The 16-member Player Advisory Council on Nov. 4 passed along a FedEx proposal to the Policy Board. The board discussed the matter at a regularly scheduled meeting Nov. 10 and approved changes via conference call Tuesday. Finchem said the process began with a “thorough discussion with players,” estimating that 60-80 players were surveyed.
Finchem said the Tour has “great expectations” for the FedEx Cup future and sees its place in the game as a complement to the overall season and big tournaments.
Posted: 11/25/2008
print
email
discuss
