Move Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup to Labor Day

Golf’s FedEx Cup Playoffs have grown on many of us. The final four events have become exciting rather than predictable. That’s a good thing.

However, the four-event series has created a frantic pace from the PGA Championship, to the Tour Championship, and Ryder or Presidents Cup. Then golf nearly falls off the map.  You have to wonder if that’s best for everyone.  

The late summer early fall golf schedule is made more complicated by the Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup, which are pitted against impending fall and winter weather in the northern hemisphere in North America and Europe.

With Cups in October, it eliminates a lot of sites—or should.  The Ryder Cup in Wales, with weather from hell, to put it kindly, is an excellent reminder of what happens when we try to put 10 pounds of golf into a five-pound scheduling bag. Pretty soon a seam splits and we are jerry-rigging the competition to get it completed. 

Who knows what the outcome would have been if the event had been played as originally scheduled? Would the winner have been different?

Fifteen years ago, pre-FedEx Playoffs, it was cold, damp, rainy weather when the Ryder Cup was played in Rochester, NY, the third week of September in 1995.  All that shows is that after September 15^th in the north, you can get anything, and usually it’s not good.   

Now, if the month of September had seven weeks instead of four or five and if all had identical weather, it would be less of an issue.  But nobody has a magic wand for that. So how can we keep a great conclusion to the professional events, have the best players going all the way through to the Tour Championship, play the team events and not have snow by the finish?  

And adding another layer of complication, how can we avoid the problems of college and pro football.

Football creates a schedule nightmare for golf because two over-the-air networks will not carry afternoon coverage because of pro football on Sundays, and none of them want golf only on Saturdays because of college football.  

So how to juggle and still have a flow in the playoffs, and have it televised?

One answer may be to start the playoffs later and make the cups sooner.

Instead of playing the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup the first week of October, why not play it the first week of September finishing either on Sunday or Labor Day?  That time of year, it is warm, even hot, in some locations.  It’s a festive weekend anyway, the last blast of the summer. In fact, the only place you could count on for cool weather that time of year is San Francisco.   

If the cups are on Labor Day, then the smart thing is to hold one more regular-season event after that. Then begin the playoffs and go four straight. 

The benefit of this change is that the top players have a week break between a cup and the playoffs.  The top players may even skip the first playoff if they are far enough up in reset points.  That is their right and their judgment call.  Look at this year’s winner, Jim Furyk.  He was DQed from the first event and still won the whole thing. So he didn’t skip the first even on purpose, but he still won it at the end.

In the post-cup week, players who are lower down on the list of FedEx points will have one last chance to move up and get into the playoffs or improve their position going into the playoffs.

Players not on a cup team will get a week break or a two-week break, depending on where they are in the points standings.  A guy at 40 in the points who did not play on a cup team can take two weeks, watch football, then suit up for his final four.  A guy who is 100 on the FedEx points list better play post-cup week, assuming he will improve his points standing.

By mid-September, after everybody’s college and pro teams have won or lost twice and the initial preseason hype has worn off, start the playoffs.

Golf can still be played in Boston or Chicago between September 15^th and September 30^th, although it may start to get a little iffy in Chicago.  The event order may need to be switched to accommodate weather in Chicago versus coastal New Jersey and Norton, Mass. (TPC of Boston). Norton at least gets Cape Cod weather, which is milder than Worcester, MA., for instance. At least that’s what they tell you when you live there. It’s a slightly milder climate, moderated by proximity to the ocean.   

What does Labor Day for the cups do to everything else? 

It ruins the Deutsche Bank Labor Day finish, but it does not eliminate them from participation in the playoffs.

It does not hurt the Tour Championship as mid- to late October in Atlanta is about the same. High 70s, low 80s.

October is a wonderful month in most of the U.S., really, except the very northern tier of states which start to see the first glimpse of cooler, rainier weather, the precursor of what is to come.

There may even be a ratings bump by putting the cups on Labor Day and starting the playoffs in mid-September.  The cups will highlight stars and draw a good audience.  Then, after a week respite with people still talking about the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup outcome, the playoffs begin. Played as four-in-a-row there’s more opportunity to build excitement each week.  There’s more continuity in the competition and less opportunity for people to forget what happened the previous week.   

There’s no Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup talk to distract from the playoffs.  

The better players will likely rise to the top as the four weeks unfold since equal practice and equal play for all still benefits the ones with the most talent.   

While the current system was created in the middle of the existing television contract and massaged sideways to make it work, perhaps looking anew at the cups and then at the playoffs as a continuous four-week series will benefit both the cups and the playoffs. It certainly makes more sense than what we have now. 

And finally, putting the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup firsts and then starting the playoffs in mid-September extends the star-laden portion of the golf season.  That can only be good for golf.