What Needs to Change About the FedEx Cup Playoffs

Let’s start with the obvious: The FedEx Cup playoffs are a step up from the previous system. This seems to be the consensus across the golf world, unless you prefer a period without any top talent teeing it up in the last quarter of the year—a legitimate offseason, if you will. If you prefer to see more of the top golfers more often and more evenly spaced throughout the season, then the playoffs are ultimately your friend.

Consider this: In the year prior to the inception of the FedEx Cup playoffs (2006), both Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods skipped the Tour Championship, which was contested in November. In fact, Woods played only one official PGA Tour event after the first week of September. He didn’t tee it up again until the Buick Invitational in the last week of January of the following year.

This year, had Woods played well enough to make it to the Tour Championship and been healthy enough to carry through on his plans to tee it up in the Frys.com Open, he would have been off for less than a month.

Here’s the first problem with the FedEx Cup playoffs: They aren’t playoffs. And that presents both practical problems and annoyances.

“Playoffs” implies an elimination-style competition in which the participants have booked passage into the competition based upon regular-season play.

The FedEx Cup playoffs are just a series of tournaments in which players who have cleared a points benchmark advance, with an adjustment before the final playoff event (the Tour Championship).

The entire concept of a season-ending playoff is that regular-season play secures passage into the playoffs, and winners and losers in games and tournaments determine advancement and ultimate victory. In other words, the regular season only has bearing on who gets into the playoffs (and seeding).

Lee Jin-man/Associated Press

In an attempt to balance rewarding those who have played well in the regular season and assigning more value to strong play in the playoffs, the PGA Tour has created a silly system of algorithms, projects and position-watching.

Thus, the playoffs ought to be legitimate playoffs. The top 125 players in the FedEx Cup standings ought to get into The Barclays, as they do now. Then, the “points” ought to go out the window.

Wouldn’t that be simpler? And better?

Instead of worrying about the implications if a player finishes 34th or 70th, we only have to consider who is inside the top 100 on the leaderboard during The Barclays, the top 70 during the BMW Championship, etc.

Of course, this flies in the face of ESPN’s Bob Harig’s take that he offered ahead of the Tour Championship.

"

If a guy like, say, Harris English, who barely snuck into the field, gets hot and wins this week, does he deserve to win the entire thing? I don't think so. And so what we're left with is the current format, which offers an advantage to those who have enjoyed great regular seasons and/or playoff runs while still guaranteeing that the season finale is an open competition.

"

However, if what we want is a legitimate playoff, there shouldn’t be this consideration, and a player like Harris English (in Harig’s example) absolutely deserves to win the FedEx Cup.

Everything would be much more straightforward, much less contrived and much closer to a genuine playoff. The focus would be more on the players and the performances than the points, which would certainly be appreciated by all.

And if you don’t feel a Tour Championship-winning performance is deserving of a $10 million bonus in this scenario, you’re probably right. The payday is ludicrous, yes. But if we’re going to stick with the same purse size, then distribute it more evenly among the Tour Championship field—perhaps $3 million to the winner instead of $11 million-plus (purse plus FedEx Cup bonus money).

Secondly, the playoff should wrap up prior to the start of the NFL season and should only be three events long to avoid exhaustion and players skipping events. While counterarguments could theoretically be presented against these suggestions, it seems unlikely that many golf fans would object too strongly.  

Part of the nature of the FedEx Cup playoffs in their nine-year history has been that they are a work-in-progress and hopefully an evolution. Considering all of the above, the next time commissioner Tim Finchem and company have a sit-down, regarding the Cup would be a good thing.