Making Title Easier to Figure, if Not to Win

Imagine if Plaxico Burress, in interviews after his clutch 13-yard touchdown reception in Super Bowl XLII, had said he had no idea the Giants’ 17-14 victory would be enough to take home the Vince Lombardi Trophy because the Patriots, in winning their first 18 games, had built such a commanding advantage in the run-up to the championship.
As outlandish as it sounds, that is essentially the situation that came to pass in the last two Super Bowls of golf. On Sunday, Bill Haas survived a three-hole sudden-death playoff against Hunter Mahan to win the Tour Championship, but he was astonished to learn that he had also won the FedEx Cup.
He thought the world No. 1, Luke Donald, had sewn up that title, and with it a $10 million bonus. In 2010, the Tour Championship winner, Jim Furyk, expressed the same surprise at winning both. They aren’t ignorant, just lacking the math degree it takes to keep the cumulative points system straight.
It is not ideal to have a golfer unaware of what exactly is riding on the 4-footer he’s standing over for par. Nor is it a ringing endorsement of the status quo to have a competitor acknowledge, as Webb Simpson did Sunday, that “it’s easy to relax in this environment with no cut and an $8 million purse and only 30 guys.”
“I said I was going to try to fight against that, but I kind of fell victim to it,” Simpson said. “It was almost lack of nerves starting the week. I almost wish I was more nervous.”
Has Tom Brady, during a Super Bowl week, been heard talking about a lack of nerves? Has any Super Bowl player noted how easy it was to relax during the week because no matter the outcome, his team had reached the final stage and would walk away a conference champion?
The FedEx Cup, a playoff format introduced in 2007 by the PGA Tour to maintain interest and excitement in golf after the last major championship, is in trouble when it can’t raise the pulses of its participants.
The points system has been revised before, most notably after the 2008 playoffs when Vijay Singh, with victories in two of the first three events, mathematically clinched the FedEx Cup before the Tour Championship began.
The way the system is now, it is impossible to clinch the FedEx Cup before the last event. It is, cheap golf clubs however, possible to clinch the Cup despite finishing in the back of the pack in the Tour Championship, as almost happened Sunday. Simpson, who entered the week ranked No. 1 in points, was the projected Cup winner at one point despite eventually finishing 22nd in the field of 30.
The system needs tweaking, even if the players won’t come right out and say it. Phil Mickelson came close when he said, “I don’t look at the points or understand it or try to, but I do know it rewards good play.” He added, “If there’s a way to simplify it, that would be great.”
One proposal that makes a lot of sense was put forth by the former PGA Tour player Brandel Chamblee, now a Golf Channel analyst. Under the current system, points are cumulative and the fields are reduced after each of the three tournaments leading to the 30-man Tour Championship. Chamblee suggested that once the four rounds of playoffs begin, each golfer starts with a blank slate every tournament.
The top 125 in the points standings would compete in the first event, with cuts in subsequent tournaments at 100, 70 and 30. The 72-hole stroke-play event would begin on Wednesday and crown a winner on Saturday. On Sunday, according to Chamblee’s proposal, the top four finishers would compete in an 18-hole playoff to determine the FedEx Cup champion. His idea has the added benefit of preventing players from taking a tournament off.
Or how about this tweak of his tweak: match-play semifinals on Sunday morning, followed by a match- or stroke-play final in the afternoon.
“You may get a blowout every now and then, just like in the Super Bowl,” Chamblee said. “But it would stop the ridiculousness of having to go to a chalkboard to explain it to everybody.”
It also would put an end to the confusion that led Haas to congratulate Donald, who finished one stroke behind him, when they had completed their final rounds.
“He birdied the last,” Haas said, “and I thought that won the FedEx Cup for him.”
Haas’s playoff opponent, Mahan, was under the same impression.
“I thought since Luke finished so high, I thought he was going to win no matter what, but I guess he ended up not,” Mahan said.
It’s time to take the guessing out of the FedEx Cup. Golf is meant to be cut and dried. There’s no scoring on a curve, no mistaking a bogey for an eagle, so why should the playoffs be any different?

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