5 Big Changes the PGA Tour Needs to Make to FedEx Cup

While the FedEx Cup finish was spectacular, featuring a nail biter of a playoff between Bill Haas and Hunter Mahan, overall the end of the tour's "playoffs" still leave a lot of people confused.  Including the players. 

Haas didn’t know he won both the FedEx Cup and the Tour Championship until the trophy presentation when there were two trophies and he was the only player present. The reason is that the points system is too hard to understand. Watson, the Jeopardy computer, could have been challenged.

Who’s on first?

Haas was not the only one who was mystified down to the last putt. Behind 18 green, while Luke Donald putted out, no one knew if he still had a chance to win the FedEx Cup because it depended on the finishes of other players. For 15 minutes or so he fluctuated between winning and not winning $10 million. There were a flock of 10 or so reporters glued to the television set in the media corral asking a PGA Tour representative what each putt meant. Does that mean Donald wins it? Does that mean Mahan wins it? What does a playoff mean?

While this was happening another representative of the Tour was in the media corral on the phone with Donald relaying this same information to him and finally telling him he was definitely not going to win the Cup. That’s not the right way for him to get that information either.

No one in the TV audience, except maybe the family members of the players involved, are following the final moments of an event more intently than members of the media. The writers for certain have college degrees and at some point along the way had math skills beat into them. They can add. So if a well-educated bunch of people are confronted with a system that changes 30 ways every second, they get frustrated and annoyed and confused just like everyone else.     

As Mahan said, “It's one of those things where it's like you can't even worry about it just because you can't do the math that fast.”

The primary change the PGA Tour needs to make is to find a system that is easier to understand. The Tour Championship portion of the playoffs needs to be more KISS—Keep It Simple, Stupid—and less What the bleep is happening now? 

For Haas to get to the victory circle and still think that Donald might have won the FedEx Cup means that the system in place is too convoluted.

The upside of the current system was that it proved a guy in 25th place could walk off with the top prize if he won the tournament and got help with low finishes from other players. With the current system, while the top five are favored, nearly everybody has a chance. This year, the nearly impossible happened.

Rethinking the points

Right now, points accumulate through the year, and then they are thrown out, which makes you scratch your head. But it basically gives a pecking order to the playoffs. 

Then after selecting the top 125 in FedEx year-long points and throwing them out, there are two new separate point systems for a four-week period.   

There’s one set of points for three weeks and a new set of points for the Tour Championship.  Somebody had to screw their head deep into the ground to come up with this system for sure. 

The first three weeks of the playoffs, watching the players who are on the bubble each time, who misses, who makes it to the next tournament, is as interesting as who wins. 

It’s the last week of the Tour Championship where the points get nutty to the point of silliness. Haas had made enough points without a 2011 victory to get into the top 30. He not only won the tournament, he won $10 million. To say he was the most consistent player or best performer all season would be wrong, but that’s what FedEx Cup says it does. This time it didn’t.  

Does the No. 25-ranked player winning the whole prize reward the player who played at the highest level all year, which, in theory, is what the FedEx Cup was supposed to be about? If rewarding the best player all year is the purpose, the PGA Tour needs another system. If rewarding the golfer who gets the right amount of points in four weeks is the goal, maybe they have what they want, even though it’s totally confusing at the end.

A handful of golfers had two PGA Tour victories in the regular part of the season: Mark Wilson, Bubba Watson, Steve Stricker, Nick Watney, Keegan Bradley. Webb Simpson had a second win in the playoffs. They were the best golfers this year on the PGA Tour, by the best definition, i.e., victories.

The points for winning and for second place points at the Tour Championship are so top-heavy, that this year at least, the points rewarded the player who won the Tour Championship, not the one who had the best year or who was the best all year.

The second change the PGA Tour needs to make is to rethink final week reset points and payout points that still reward the guys who played the best all season. It’s OK if only half the field has a chance to win $10 million. Everybody didn’t have the best season. 

What time is it?

The timing of the playoffs is really difficult. It would be better if there were two or three tournaments between the WGC NEC and the playoffs. 

The current schedule between the British Open and the playoffs is so short that it becomes difficult for golfers to play at a high level with a high level of interest for the entire final four events.  By putting another tournament or two between the WGC NEC and the playoffs, the top guys, the ones everybody wants to see for four weeks, get a breather so they can get fired up to play hard for a month.

So what if football starts. Give half the teams, college and NFL, a chance to lose a couple games so that those on the fence will watch some golf after their team is 0-3. There’s preseason hype and then reality sets in, and pretty soon, half the fans are disappointed and looking for something else to watch.  What better than a playoff?

The third thing the PGA Tour needs to change in the FedEx Cup is to give some breathing room before it starts.

Play them all

The fourth change needs to happen in the playoffs is that all the top guys need to play all four events. By giving some breathing room at the front, they will have the energy to make it through the end, even if they have to go four in a row. The way to get them to do that is to deduct points for those who don’t play all the events. You don’t play Barclays? Zap! You just lost 200 points. A player can’t be forced to play, but by deducting points that may be valuable later, it encourages them to show up.  

What’s most important?

Finally, two things can’t occupy the same space. Or as John Madden use to say about football, two things can’t hurt at the same time. For sure two things can’t get glory and headlines at the same time.

Again, from Mahan, “I'm trying to win the Tour Championship. It's kind of sad for the Tour Championship in a way because it kind of gets lost, and this is really one of the most prestigious tournaments of the year.”

Either winning the Tour Championship diminishes the winning of the FedEx Cup or vice versa.  Chances are that in most years, the winner of the FedEx Cup is not going to be the winner of the Tour Championship. Winning both at the same time is possible, and it has happened the last two years, but it still leaves that head scratching moment: What’s the most important? And how does that get distinguished? 

That’s an answer the PGA Tour needs to find. Right now, if the FedEx Cup title is settled the focus goes to the Tour Championship. If the FedEx Cup is not settled, the Tour Championship gets second billing. Mahan's right. It's a big deal. It shouldn't be relegated to second place when it is a first class event. 

Kathy Bissell is a golf writer for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand or from official interview materials from the USGA, PGA Tour or PGA of America.