The FedEx Cup Has an Identity Crisis

JERSEY CITY, N.J.—Although the 2009 FedEx Cup officially began on Thursday morning at The Barclays, players, fans, and the media are still trying to get their heads around the latest wave of format tweaks.

The general idea of a playoff system in golf is a great one. If run properly, it could produce an extremely exciting end to the season weeks after the PGA Championship has concluded.

The major problem the PGA Tour has right now is that the FedEx Cup has an identity crisis.

The FedEx Cup is continually referred to as a season-long race, yet players such as Steve Marino and Paul Goydos could get hot for a few weeks during an eight-month long season and capture the FedEx Cup title. 

Furthermore, a player can win the first three FedEx Cup events, finish second at the Tour Championship and not win the title.

What has happened over the past few years is that the FedEx Cup has simultaneously moved in two separate directions.

The original concept was to create a season-long points race, where players who performed consistently well throughout the entire season would have an excellent chance at winning the FedEx Cup come playoff time.

That idea worked perfectly.

Tiger Woods won seven times during the 2007 season, and thus he was crowned the FedEx Cup Champion.

In 2008, Vijay Singh won three times, had five other top-five finishes, and was a deserving champion under the format in place at the time.

There was just one problem—the FedEx Cup had the word "playoffs" in its title.

How could Tiger Woods skip the first event of the 2007 playoffs and win?

How could Camilo Villegas win the final two events of the 2008 playoffs and not win the title?

That would be like handing the New England Patriots the Lombardi Trophy in 2008 despite their loss to the Giants in the Super Bowl.

Needless to say, there was uproar from the fans, who are ultimately the ones who pay the bills.  

So, the format was tweaked.

Now, the FedEx Cup is still referred to as a season-long race, yet any one of the top 125 players on tour could get hot for a few weeks during the playoffs and win the title.

A season-long race with a four-tournament sprint to determine the winner?

Does the New York City Marathon make participants run 26.2 miles, cut the field down to 125, then make those 125 men run a sprint to determine the winner?

Is it fair that the guy who won the 26.2 mile race doesn’t win?

Or if the format was different, would it be fair that the guy who won the sprint didn’t win?

"It's definitely a tough thing that they are trying to do, trying to make it fair for somebody who is playing all year and not trying to let somebody come in who has not played that great but played solid enough and then just goes and wins and all of a sudden wins it," Ryan Moore said at Liberty National where he is on hand for The Barclays.

Therein lies the FedEx Cup’s ultimate crux.

Is it a marathon or a sprint? Because it can’t be both.

"I don't know which is the best combination," Vijay Singh said on Tuesday at The Barclays. "They will have to try this and if it doesn't work, they will tweak it again."

If the PGA Tour wants the FedEx Cup to be a true season-long race to determine the winner, it might want to think about removing the word "playoffs" from the title.

Alternatively, if the PGA Tour wants to run a legitimate end-of-the-year playoff, it will need to adjust the format to make the Tour Championship golf’s version of the Super Bowl, where the winner takes all.

The FedEx Cup is currently at a crossroads—will it evolve into a true season-long points race? Or will it become a playoff system similar to those of the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL?

One way or another, the FedEx Cup’s identity crisis will need to be resolved if it wants to survive.