TERRE HAUTE — Now that Tiger Woods has pronounced his 2007 season as “great” after his win at the steam bath that was The PGA Championship, is there anymore need to follow professional golf, or do we move onto football and to baseball as the pennant races heat up?
The PGA Tour is trying to hold our interest beyond the regular season this year by virtue of the FedEx Cup. We’ve all seen the commercials, heard the sports announcers mention how many FedEx Cup points something is worth, but have we really understood what was happening? I’ve had a “wait and see” kind of attitude about it, but the time is upon us now, so perhaps it would be nice to understand what the FedEx Cup is, and what it means to the PGA Tour.
The FedEx Cup is a new championship trophy for the PGA Tour. This is not a one-weekend wonder though, like all other tour events. This trophy is complicated by having “playoffs”, which are really a series of four events that players have to qualify for. I guess the PGA Tour figured that the NFL, the NBA, the NHL and major league baseball all have playoffs, so they should too.
Oh, and I can’t leave out the NASCAR reference. The point system used to whittle down the players to the top 144 is supposed to be something like NASCAR point system race. The point system is kind of like the top money list race, but by awarding points instead of going by they money list, inequities in sponsorship amounts are evened out. Throughout the 2007 season, every regular PGA Tour event awards 25,000 points to players.
The World Golf Championships will award 26,250 points, and the four majors and the Players championship 27,500 points. The winner of each tournament received 18 percent of the total points (the same percentage as a standard tournament purse breakdown), on down to every player making the cut receiving some amount of points. The goal is to be in the top 144 in points after the Wyndham Championship (going on this weekend). Those are the players who qualify for the “playoffs”. Points will then be reset with first place (Tiger Woods) receiving 100,000 points, second place 99,000 points, and on down until the 144th player receives 84,700.
The playoffs are a series of four events, starting Aug. 23-26 with The Barclays Championship. Players who make the cut get a percentage of 50,000 points with the winner receiving 9,000 points. Points reset and the following weekend, Aug. 31 — Sept. 3, is the Deutsche Bank Championship. The top 120 players after the Barclays will play in it.
Points are awarded again after the Deutsche Bank, and the top 70 points leaders go on to the BMW Championships September 6th – 9th. Next is The Tour Championship, the weekend of Sept. 13 — 16, where only the top 30 points leaders will compete.
The player who has the most points after the Tour Championship is the winner of the FedEx Cup, and receives a $10 million annuity. All participants in the “playoffs” will receive some amount of compensation. The runner-up will get $3 million, 3rd place $2 million, 4th place $1.5 million, on down to $30,000 for 144th place. The winner of the FedEx Cup will also receive a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour. Also, the winner of the Tour Championship receives a 3-year tour exemption, so it’s possible that the winner of any one of the other three FedEx Cup playoff events will receive the same exemption, although it hasn’t been officially announced.
Will this playoff system for golf do anything to boost golf’s fall television ratings, or will football and baseball be just too interesting? Will golf fans be burned out or hungry for more by the time the President’s Cup arrives, Sept. 24th — 30th, the weekend following The Tour Championship? Those questions are yet to be answered but experience tells us that much of the answer depends on how Tiger Woods is playing.
Television ratings are much higher when Tiger is in the mix. The FedEx Cup took a small hit this week when Tiger announced that he wouldn’t be playing in the first of the playoff events. With 100,000 points to start, he has room to spare as long as he comes back and scores some points in the second event. The FedEx Cup would not have a great maiden year if Tiger somehow missed the top 30.
The FedEx Cup could become a great event for the PGA Tour, or it might not work at all if enough interest is not shown from Tour players. However, with the winner receiving 10 million dollars, interest is pretty well assured!
n Quote of the day: “ I don’t know nothing about the FedEx Cup. I never was good at math.” – Boo Weekley.
Tribune-Star golf columnist Jennifer Myers can be reached at jfmyers@xsthe.net.
On & Off the Course
On and Off the Course: Does FedEx Cup keep
- On & Off the Course
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Death Notice: Feb. 7, 2013
• Gary R. Wright
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Donna Lynn Strahla Bown
Donna Lynn Strahla Bown passed away early Friday morning, Jan. 25, 2013, with her children by her side.
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‘The Match’ pitting amateurs vs. pros recalled 62 years later
Quote of the Day: “I play golf with friends sometimes, but there are never friendly games.” — Ben Hogan.
Bubba Watson has had a busy fall. Not only did he play all the way to the final round of the FedEx Championships, and in the Ryder Cup, he also played in an event commemorating a very famous match played at Cypress Point in 1956, pitting two of the greatest golf pros at the time against two of the best amateurs.
Come to think of it, all four were some of the best golfers of all time. This year’s event was celebrating The First Tee’s exceeding $100 million in pledges to reach 10 million new young people. It wasn’t televised and kept very quiet; only 225 people were in the gallery.
One of the people in the gallery was Mark Frost, the author of a book titled “The Match,” which is about that match played 62 years ago that was re-enacted in modern terms last week. The pros in 1956 were Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson and the amateurs were Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward. It was supposed to have been a private affair, built around a wager by two millionaires, George Coleman and Eddie Lowery. -
ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Golf from the wrong side of the brain
Imagine this scenario: a woman, small in stature (possibly freckled), walks into a hospital emergency room and says, “I have an emergency, I need a doctor quickly!” The admitting nurse, ever trying to be helpful, asks what the emergency is.
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Farmers looking at widely varying yields
Combines will roll through fields this weekend, bringing in the harvest from a summer with nearly no rain.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Golf debut in London would have been nice
As the Olympics get underway in London this weekend, I was thinking it’s too bad that the Olympic committee decided too late to add golf as one of the sports for this event; instead it will be added to the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Getting to Hoosier country’s best golfing venue part of the fun
If you are looking for Indiana’s premier golfing destination, then you should look no further than French Lick.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Indiana's Pete Dye courses worth the drive
You’ve probably heard of the Robert Trent Jones Golf trail throughout Alabama, but you might not be aware that Indiana has its own “Pete Dye Golf Trail” comprised of seven courses.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Fathers typically a big influence on golfing sons
Some events fall naturally into place around holidays. The Fourth of July always falls somewhere during Wimbledon, giving all of the Yanks in attendance something to be boisterous about, to the chagrin of their hosts; The Masters often, but not always, ends on Easter Sunday, which is fitting since golfers find it such a reverent occasion.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Memorial just one of many visions of Jack Nicklaus
When Jack Nicklaus was a young man, the golfer he most admired was Bob Jones.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: With some tricky rules, golf is not a walk in the park
Golf is not a casual sport, even though it has a term called “casual water.”
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On and off the course: Sycamores seeded sixth heading into MVC golf tourney
It wasn’t too long ago that Indiana State University didn’t even have a women’s golf team.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: A hard ticket to come by
This is the weekend of the Masters Tournament, the first of the four major tournaments.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Some things on golf course are worse than steep putts
It’s not often that anything gets more scary on a golf course than a steep downhill putt, but on some courses around the world, things a little more on the supernatural side might give you a bigger fright!
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: The shot heard round the world
I don’t know if the Golf Channel will show a “Best Shots of 2011” highlight reel, much like ESPN does for baseball or football.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: The Red, White and Blue visits the Isle of Green
In 2006, the Ryder Cup was held in Ireland at The K Club in County Kildare.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Fall may be coming but golf season is far from over
Once the major tournaments are over with, what’s there to look forward to in the world of golf?
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Golf… simplified!
Golf is not a simple game. A golf course is made up of 18 holes, all different. There are par-3s, par-4s and par-5s; they all vary in length and elevation, and each has its own challenges. There can be water hazards, trees, sand bunkers, tall grass, hills, valleys — and then, if that’s not enough, there’s probably wind too.
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On and Off the Course: Northern Ireland builds on golf history
Northern Ireland is only about 5,452 square miles in area and has a population about the same as West Virginia, which is about 1,880,344.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Women’s Open at the Broadmoor
This is the weekend of the U.S. Women’s Open, and this year it’s being played at The Broadmoor, East Course, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: The Fort Golf Course: A Walk in the Park…
Indiana has some pretty spectacular state parks, but one of them gives you the ability to “spoil a good walk” by chasing a little white ball.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Father’s Day is a good day for golfers
Most people consider the time around Christmas to be the gift-buying season.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Playing with lead a difficult task
As exciting as last week’s Masters was, with six players being tied for the lead at one point on Sunday, it was very difficult watching Rory McIlroy fall apart to shoot an 80.
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ON AND OFF THE COURSE: Masters a rite of spring
This is Masters weekend, the grand kickoff to the golf season for a lot of golfers. Sure, there have been tournaments on TV, because the professionals have been playing in Hawaii, California, Texas, Dubai, and other areas not so affected by winter as we are here in the Midwest, but to me, watching The Masters is a rite of spring.
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ON THE OFF THE COURSE: Some history on the Ryder Cup
I fell asleep in way too many history classes to ever qualify as a history buff. However, since I have grown up a bit (not much), I enjoy learning about all kinds of history. I often have questions about how something began, or how something came to be.
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On and Off the Course: Purdue's Kampen Course a gem in Indiana's rough
About a month ago, Indiana was still heavily mired in heat and humidity, making outdoor activities such as golf less appealing than usual. At that time it felt like the repressive heat would never go away, it would never rain again, and all of the grass was just going to continue to wither and die. And the month prior to that we kept getting rained out of golf events!
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On and Off the Course: Successful golfers know ... focus is the key
I have a good friend who coached his daughter’s basketball team for a number of years, and told me that his theme with the girls was always “focus”, until it was ingrained in their brains. Now when they play high school ball, if they hear “focus” yelled from the stands, they know the source.
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On and Off the Course: Technology adds even more fun to the course
You’ve hit a drive into some brush in an area marked as a hazard, but you can’t find the ball to prove it is there. And no one actually witnessed it go in the hazard. You just think that’s where it probably is. What is the rule for this situation?
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On and Off the Course: Anthony Gonzalez First Tee Classic a worthwhile charity event
On Monday, I worked as a volunteer for the Anthony Gonzalez First Tee Classic, Golf Tournament and Auction at Eagle Creek Golf Course in Indianapolis. It was an absolutely beautiful day, with clear blue skies, just a few wispy clouds here and there and a high temperature of about 76 degrees.
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On and Off the Course: Trends show golf in decline
You don’t have to watch the news or read the paper to understand that America is struggling on the economic front. The evidence can be witnessed at the local golf course.
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