The PGA Tour's FedEx Cup Continues to Struggle with an Identity Crisis

The PGA Tour has announced that it will be adjusting the FedEx Cup points system for the first time since 2009.

This latest change, which was approved by the PGA Tour’s Policy Board and announced by commissioner Tim Finchem on Thursday, involves the number of points allocated to the four playoff events.

Winners of FedEx Cup playoff events had previously earned 2,500 points for a win, which was five times the number of points awarded for a regular season win. Beginning in 2015, the number of points awarded for a playoff event win will be reduced to 2,000 points, which is four times the number of points awarded for regular-season wins.

Finchem said, as reported by PGATour.com:

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Every year since the FedEx Cup was introduced in 2007, we have reviewed the points structure with the Player Advisory Council and four Player Directors who sit on the Policy Board. We believe this slight modification will add greater significance to players having an outstanding season leading into the Playoffs, while still allowing for the excitement of volatility and movement during the Playoffs, particularly as players vie to make the final 30 for the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola.

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While the PGA Tour has made some positive changes to the FedEx Cup playoff system since its inception, this latest change is a clear indication that the FedEx Cup is still struggling with an identity crises heading into its ninth year of existence.

John Amis/Associated Press

Each modification made to the playoff system between 2007 and 2009 added more volatility to the four playoff events because it became quite difficult for the Tour to label the FedEx Cup as a “playoff” when players such as Tiger Woods (2007) and Vijay Singh (2008) had secured FedEx Cup titles before the Tour Championship had even taken place.

However, right from its inception, the FedEx Cup has also been touted as a “season-long race.” So, in recent years it has become difficult for the Tour to justify a true season-long race when players such as Rory McIlroy can win two majors and a World Golf Championship and lose out in the FedEx Cup Playoffs to Billy Horschel, who had just two top 10s all season prior to the start of the playoffs.

While the three modifications to the points system made prior to 2009 were all implemented with the “playoff” portion of the FedEx Cup in mind, this latest change was made with the “season-long race” catchphrase in mind.

A true playoff system would be quite simple to implement in golf; it would just follow a format similar to every other major sport in America.  

Players would earn a place in the playoffs based on their performance throughout the regular season. The playoffs would then essentially be a new season where players that do not perform well would be eliminated and the winner of the Tour Championship (AKA golf’s Super Bowl) would be the FedEx Cup Champion. Some have even floated the idea of turning the Tour Championship into a match play event where the conclusion would literally be head-to-head matches for the FedEx Cup title and a $10 million pay day.

It is not a complicated concept. Playoffs in virtually every other major sport work in this exact same way. An NFL team doesn’t automatically make it to the Super Bowl just because it went 16-0 during the regular season. Popular teams are also not ushered into the NFL playoffs every year just to boost television ratings.

The issue for the PGA Tour is that it has been attempting to please all interest groups under one FedEx Cup playoff umbrella.

Regular-season sponsors want their tournaments to mean something which is why tournaments such as the John Deere Classic award nearly as many points as the majors and WGCs.

Playoff sponsors want their tournaments to carry additional weight, and the PGA Tour had to do something to justify the “Playoff” portion of their FedEx Cup tag line, so winners of the four playoff events are awarded four times as many points as regular-season wins.

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Television networks need golf’s biggest names in as many tournaments as possible, which is why they are all for the questionable regular-season point allocation and making sure that 125 players make it into the playoffs and 30 players make it into all four days of play at the Tour Championship. Television networks also love the idea of the top players from the regular season being virtually assured a spot in the Tour Championship no matter how they perform during the first three playoff events.

FedEx of course wants some excitement around the playoff system, while also making sure that the biggest names in the game are appearing as often as possible in the playoffs so that fans will tune in to actually justify their huge sponsorship investment. This is why we see a point system that produces a level of volatility within playoff events, while still ensuring that the year’s top players make it through to the Tour Championship.

And of course there are the players who all want a piece of the $67 million in playoff prize money and bonuses.

Finchem is the ring leader at the center of all of this and has been attempting to implement a playoff system in golf that somehow pleases all of these interest groups. As a result of this, we have gotten something that isn’t really anything.

The FedEx Cup is not really a season-long race as a player can win the FedEx Cup without having won a single tournament during the regular season.

The FedEx Cup is not a true playoff because a player that had a good season can play terribly for three playoff events and still not only make it into the Tour Championship but somehow head into East Lake within the top five of the standings with the ability to control his own destiny.

And, of course any point system that requires NBC and Golf Channel analyst Steve Sands to conduct math equations on live television in order to inform the audience about who may or may not win the FedEx Cup title is probably a bit too difficult for the average non-mathematician fan to understand.

A wise man once told me that it is impossible to please everyone all the time.

But in attempting to please everyone the PGA Tour has wound up with a FedEx Cup system that leaves out the single most important interest group—the fans.

For the average golf fan the FedEx Cup is far too difficult to understand and is lacking any real form of excitement, and the television ratings have proven that.

According to sportsmediawatch.com, the television ratings for the final round of the 2014 Tour Championship were flat from 2013 and were down 28 percent from 2012. The ratings for the final round coverage of the 2014 Tour Championship also tied for the second lowest final round ratings since the FedEx Cup began back in 2007.

The third round of the Tour Championship was actually the ONLY round during the entire 2014 FedEx Cup playoffs that saw an increase in viewership from last year.

Make no mistake, Finchem is tasked with a very difficult job in terms of ensuring that everyone throwing money into the FedEx Cup is happy with the format produced.

But if fans continue to tune out of the FedEx Cup playoffs, everything else is bound to crumble at some point because sponsors, advertisers and television networks will not want to continue throwing huge money into events that no one is watching.

You can’t please everyone all the time, but it would certainly be in the best interest of the Tour to please the single group that is ultimately driving the entire FedEx Cup machine—the fans.