Wednesday, August 29, 2007
FedEx Cup: We Can Rebuild It
A number of writers have come out and made their suggestions for how best to improve the FedEx Cup. Gary Van Sickle of SI had the most ideas that resonated with me. The ideas proposed by most, though, do not address other fundamental issues outside of the structure of the Cup. I'd like to take my own crack at a comprehensive plan to improve the PGA Tour and FedEx Cup. Call it peer pressure.
1. We don't need no stinkin' points. The money list has been — and always will be — one of the best gauges for a player and a fan of how a player is doing on the season. Success for a player is first determined by their performance in the majors, then consistency of finishes on the whole season, and then how much money they took away for the year. The FedEx Cup is trying to address each of the last two on that list.
They did this by awarding points to all of those players that made the cut (aka got paid) in an event. They staggered the points scale to place emphasis on the majors, the Players Championship, and the World Golf Championships events. The problem is that every other event is treated exactly the same in terms of the number of FedEx Cup points available. The reality is that the events which don't fall into the above mentioned categories are not the same. Prize money and quality of field vary dramatically from event to event. Interestingly enough, there is usually a strong correlation between prize money and quality of field. Therefore, the money list naturally ranks tournaments by their true worth on the schedule.
Now, I can imagine that the Tour went to their sponsors of the less significant events and promised them that by equalizing the FEC points for each non-major/Players/WGC event, that there would be better fields and more ratings. The fans are smarter than that. So stop trying to fool the sponsors and let the players themselves dictate which events should mean the most to this season long chase.
2. Let tradition establish itself. The PGA Tour shoved the FedEx Cup down our throats all year with commercials, random graphics, bewildering press conferences, and the like. The Tour event went so far as to compare the inaugural playoffs to the first Super Bowl. To have the mindset that the playoffs will become that important to the sporting culture is wishful thinking, at best.
The reality is that the golf tournaments which are most esteemed in golf lore have reached that pinnacle because of what has transpired in the tournament over the years, the tournament venue, and the way the tournament is conducted to ensure a great player and fan experience. The Masters started out as a tiny little golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia. It did not achieve the status is did of being so important — really — arguably until the 1940s or 1950s. That happened because of the kind of drama inherent to Augusta National, the quality of field that consistently accepted invitations to play the events, and the unique experience that the Masters gave fans (it's even more unique now).
The playoffs have to be marketed in a fashion that does not claim automatic importance to the sport, its players, and its fans. This is an experiment. It is something new for a sport that has never really had a clearly defined season. Hell, the European Tour's 2008 season started in July. (Just kidding. It's in November 2007.) Market the FedEx Cup as an opportunity to create some excitement for a season that is largely dull. Explain to fans how the thing works. Explain to the players how the thingy works so that they might actually care and may actually convey that sense of interest to the fanbase. Everyone is still trying to figure out the viability of this concept. Yes, to me, it is clearly better than the old alternative of a lame duck Tour Championship. (For once, Bob Harig and I are on the same page though we've never met.) Other than that, the best the Tour can do is to create awareness and let the tradition of a Tour Playoff establish itself.
3. Create a real playoff. The FedEx Cup is designed as a way to encourage the best players to play more often. By taking a personal first week bye at the Barclays, Tiger Woods has declared that intention yet to be fulfilled. Perhaps it is because there is no inherent excitement in allowing 144 guys to qualify for the playoffs. That's 19 players more than the 125 that are fully exempt for the Tour next season. By means of comparison, that's like letting the last five kids to be cut from the high school varsity football team to compete in only the first game of the season.
A playoff implies a much more limited field of participants. Start with 70 guys at Westchester. That will allow more time to showcase the participants on television during the Golf Channel's Thursday-Friday coverage. Cut the field in half for the weekend and suddenly there are a lot more guys getting attention on the television. The Tour and its broadcast partners do an awful job of spreading out the camera love when there are more than about 40 guys on the course at any one time. (They're especially bad when Woods is in the field.) Eliminate that problem by giving as much face time to the likely contenders as possible with a very limited field. It worked for the LPGA and their ADT Playoffs.
By the time the Tour Championship rolls around (with its final field of 30), both diehard and casual fans can be much more aware of the personalities in the final event of the season. That kind of connection is what makes NASCAR successful. And it's the point largely lost on this FedEx Cup concept. In individual-driven sports, the most popular players are those that fans can relate to in some fashion. There are very few of those guys in golf. The only way fans can relate is if they are given information that will make guys relatable. Since the players themselves do that sparsely, the Tour should use its production capabilities, broadcast partners, and tournament structures to make that happen.
4. Give these guys a break. These guys may be good, but they're probably also very tired. Tiger Woods — the most fit guy in golf and maybe in individual sports — said he was tired of playing two weeks in a row after the WGC-Firestone Invitational and PGA Championship. Even though everyone knows that is a BS excuse, the point holds that Tiger does not really want to play more than three weeks in a row at a time. If the best player and the guy who is most physically able to have that kind of stamina refuses to do that, then what are the guys that are actually playing this week feeling?
It's too much golf for them in a row. That may make them crybabies, or wimps, or whatever, or it may not. That's not the point. The idea is that there needs to be some kind of pause in the schedule between the PGA Championship and the start of the playoffs. Have one officially dormant week on Tour before the playoffs to drub up some golf withdraw from fans. Open the playoffs with a more complete field (maybe) and have additional hype that would not otherwise exist.
It was a horrible idea to transition from the Wyndham Championship — an event that is comparatively weak on the schedule — to this huge production that is the playoffs. Cut out of an events between the PGA Championship and the playoffs to generate the feeling that the last major leads into the final push for the season. It may even be worth it to take another week off before the Tour Championship. The idea here is simply to give the divas no excuse to not participate.
5. Choose venues that convey the importance of the series. I've mentioned this point before in my blog. It's something I feel deserves a second printing. The Tour is trying to demonstrate to fans and players that this series of events deserves the consideration and concentration of any major championship. But, if you look at the venues hosting these four events, you may be left to wonder how that is to be understood. The Tour preferred rather to demonstrate the importance of the events by staging them in metropolitan areas of four of the largest television markets in the country — New York, Boston, Chicago (at least this year), and Atlanta.
Since the Tour cannot and should not create gimmick events for the playoffs, the events should be held at major-caliber tracks in these areas. This will create familiarity and reverence for the courses from the viewer. It will serve as a special treat for the players themselves as they will be afforded a rare opportunity to play tournament golf on the highest stage at the most revered golf courses.
Westchester is a fine golf course, but it's not major-caliber. You could look all over the NYC metropolitan area and find courses that would be more deserving. Bethpage Black immediately comes to mind. If you wanted to go to New Jersey, you could hold it at Baltusrol. How about Shinnecock Hills in the Hamptons?
Then we go to Boston for the Deutsche Bank at the TPC of Boston. It's a good looking course — especially with the suave redo — but not one that resonates with the average golf fan as being extremely important and certainly does not have a historic significance. (Only one TPC course does, and that's questionable sometimes.) Golf Digest does not even consider TPC Boston to be in the top 20 courses in the state. Why not signup Brookline?
The only one of the three events leading to the finale at East Lake to get things right is the BMW Championship Formerly Known as the Western Open. While I hate that the Tour is moving the event around the midwest and not keeping it in Chicago, I do like that courses of major-caliber will be hosting the event for the next several years, including Hazeltine and Bellerive. They have the right idea on that front — except that Cog Hill is not as well noticed by fans.
East Lake is also not too bad of a venue. It is weak that it closes on a par three, but that can be modified. The course conveys a great story about community development and has a tie into Bobby Jones. It may not be perfect, but considering that it would be a bad idea to invite Peachtree CC to be host course for this event, I think it will have to do.
Now it's time for my final suggestion.
6. Vary the schedule. The PGA Tour responded to calls by players (and fans) for a shorter season with the FedEx Cup. That's great and all, but it only really addresses one of a fairly lengthy list of concerns when it comes to scheduling. The season now has a fairly clearly defined beginning, end, and resolution. That's good.
What's bad is that the events that comprise the FedEx Cup largely lack uniqueness from one week to the next. With the exception of a few 90-hole events and the WGC-Accenture Match Play, the only thing that changes from tournament to tournament is venue and city. Basically, I'm saying that nothing changes. There are very few layouts that are unique enough to be noticed by the fans of the Tour. Each track looks very similar to the last. Certainly, there are great courses on the schedule: Quail Hollow, Stadium Course, Colonial, Riviera, etc., but only a small percentage of fans can actually recognize and appreciate their history and architectural hip-ness. And if the Tour is relying on the fans to appreciate course design techniques and golf history, then they're paddling up the wrong stream.
The answer to eliminating the feeling that all weeks run together is by creating tournaments that stand out. The Tour attempted to do this by positioning a "highlight event" in each month of the schedule. January is the Mercedes to start the year. February is the Accenture Match Play. March is the WGC event at Doral. April is the Masters. May is the Players. June is the U.S. Open. July is the Open. August is the PGA. September is the playoffs. The majors are unique. The Match Play is unique. I'll even give them credit for the Players as unique. But, for about 30 weeks on schedule, no other event really catches my eye.
It's time to reinstall gimmick events for fun. Give me some more match play events. Maybe there should be three each season. You could split the season into thirds (another Van Sickle good idea) and cap them off with a 16-player match play event to determine some level of bonus dollars for the money list.
Why not have a team competition in which the top 80 guys are split into 20 teams of four? The captains (the top 20 on the money list) could pick their guys and the aggregate score over four days determines the team champion. That team is then given bonus money to spread out evenly to help them on the money list. And then you could still have an individual champion. It would finally give some character to an invitational event other than a limited field while paying tribute to collegiate golf, which employs a similar tournament format.
This list of ideas was not all that hard to concoct. I thought of half of them while I was sitting here writing this article. Fans would get behind these ideas and give them something to watch that is different and scintillating. I would never proclaim them to be the be-all-end-all list of changes to be made, but I think that they are at least a valuable contribution. Just in case the Tour thinks so, my email address is [email protected]. I'd also love to hear your thoughts for improving the FedEx Cup, as well.