Hawkins: PGA Tour May Be Open To Good Idea!

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It's one thing for a cerebral tour player like Joe Ogilvie to be coming around on the brilliant FedEx Cup fix proposed by yours truly last year in Golf World.

But to see a media colleague, one who is a star and a man who doesn't have to write back-of-the-magazine notes, now taking the same view? it's heartwarming in ways I never imagined.

John Hawkins in this week's Golf World on GolfDigest.com:

One logical and recently discussed scenario involves an 18-hole shootout among the top four to eight players in the standings. The Tour Championship would begin on Wednesday and conclude on Saturday, leaving Sunday open for the last men standing to play one round of stroke-play golf for a whole lot of money. "In theory, it's a pretty good concept," says Joe Ogilvie, a member of the tour's policy board.

Votaw acknowledges the shootout as an option and adds, "It may seem alluring in some respects. We may come up with a better idea or receive feedback that leads us in another direction."
Cruel of Hawkins to have put the question to the PGA Tour's Ty Votaw, who oversaw the creation of the LPGA's similar ADT Championship. That said, isn't it wonderful to see that after hitting rock bottom, they might consider something that people actually want to watch. My heart is warming so much, I have to go now.

Before I do, about those ratings...
Saturday's third round on NBC had an overnight Nielsen rating of 1.3, down 46.4% from last year's 2.8 (that turned out to be a 2.6 in the final rating).

Sunday's fourth round had an overnight rating of 1.8, down 54.5% from last year's 3.3 (a 3.0 final rating).

“This has ruined the greatest week of my life coming here"

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One week after a major brand, uh, refurbishment and platform expansion, Kenny Perry worked ably to reestablish his image as a spoiled tour professional by pointing out the sheer awfulness of having to appear in a 30-man, $7 million+ giveaway as millions of Americans worried about paying their electric bill.

Jeff Rude reminds us why Kenny will always be Kenny:

Perry shot 76-75 the first two days and wasn’t happy he had to submit to a random drug test for the second time since the program’s inception in July.
“This has ruined the greatest week of my life coming here,” said Perry, adding he’d rather be home celebrating his Ryder success. “It really has.”
It’s refreshing that a professional athlete in effect is saying big money isn’t everything.
Well that's certainly one unusual way to look at it.

Commissioner: when you fine him, fine him good.

Which reminds me, I guess the horror of peeing in a cup at the Tour Championship probably means that Ryder Cup drug testing we heard about never happened?

Vijay Becomes First To Win FedEx Cup Without Winning Tour Championship

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Granted, it was year two, but the worst traditions have to start some place.

Bob Harig at ESPN.com:

Meanwhile, Singh was being congratulated on his $10 million haul despite never breaking 70 during four rounds, never contending for the tournament title and finishing tied for 22nd. With an hour to go in the tournament, Singh was collecting the hardware from PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem in a strange, made-for-TV ceremony.

That scenario was always a danger in this new-fangled system that has the PGA Tour crowning a season-long champion on the same day it gives a trophy to the winner of one of its supposedly prestigious tournaments.

What happens when the winner of the FedEx Cup is not the winner of the Tour Championship?
Steve Elling at CBSSports.com on the oddity of Camillo Villegas winning just as many playoff events as Vijay, including the final event, and coming away the runner up:
Had the rest of the four-week playoff series played out the same way, Villegas could have won the first-place $10 million had he not missed the cut at The Barclays, the FedEx opener, by one thin shot. In fact, had he just played on the weekend, he could have finished dead last among those who made the cut and still earned enough points to ultimately slide past Singh into first place at the end of the rainbow, assuming all things remained equal elsewhere.

Breaking it down, Singh won the first two FedEx events and Villegas won the last two. At the second, won by Singh in Boston, Villegas played in the final group and finished tied for third. In other words, throw out the missed cut and he arguably outplayed Singh over four weeks. Singh, who was T44 and T22 in his last two starts, just didn't miss a cut and scored points at all four venues.

Villegas didn't much want to talk about the details.

"That was an expensive cut," he said. "That's the way this game goes. If I knew that was the case, I don't know what I would have done different. But you've just got to be in the present.

"Again, the FedEx Cup, it's great for the game. We need to get the points system better, and I'm not saying this because I finished second. I've been saying this since Day 1. I had a chance to sit down with the commissioner this Wednesday and share some ideas.

"We just need to make it fun for the fans and fun for us. So FedEx has done a great job in putting all this together, and I'm sure the tour is grinding and trying to get it as good as they can."

For a defective product, it was as good as could be expected.

Tour Championship: "The catering equivalent of a turd in the punchbowl."

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Steve Elling writes:

The Tour Championship's importance has been wrecked by a sad confluence of events that left a tournament designed to be a grand finale into the catering equivalent of a turd in the punchbowl.

Yes, it starts today.

Would this be a bad time to bring up this proposal again? Promise I won't mention it again.

Lift, Clean, Place Claims Another Victim

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From the AP story on Will MacKenzie's costly mistake Saturday at the Viking Classic.

MacKenzie's triple bogey Saturday on the par-5 18th left him tied for second with Brian Gay, two strokes behind Turnesa on the Annandale course. MacKenzie was penalized for moving impediments in the hazard while his ball was also in the hazard.
Turnesa, a PGA TOUR rookie who also topped the second-round leaderboard, shot a 6-under 66 for a 17-under 199 total. MacKenzie and Gay had 67s.
MacKenzie, who has one TOUR victory, the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2006, opened with birdies on the first two holes and made the turn at 32. His only stumble before 18 was a bogey on the fourth hole.
MacKenzie said he "spaced out" after a day of being able to lift, clean and place his ball because of wet conditions. There were a a few blades of grass near his ball, not anything that would be a problem, he said.
MacKenzie said he brushed them away with his hand, then he realized what he had done and told an official, who assessed the penalty.

"We don't want to talk about the FedEx Cup, do we?"

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The scribblers, already fired up about having an execution chamber viewing area and Vijay choosing not to talk to them, are declaring the demise of FedEx Cup. Of course that assumes it ever reached a peak before declining. Let's face it, the entire thing was flawed for two reasons: Tiger and Phil. The system was designed to ensure they would be eligible until the finish, and as long as the points gurus have to gear the entire thing about guiding the tour's two biggest draws to the weekend at East Lake, it will always be flawed.

Here are some of the reviews and other complications being raised, starting with Gary Van Sickle:

Then Villegas was asked if it was disappointing that he tied for third at the Deutsche Bank Championship (at which Singh won after a closing 63) and won at Bellerive but can't take the FedEx Cup as long as Vijay simply finishes four rounds in Atlanta. Villegas put on a solemn face. "We don't want to talk about the FedEx Cup, do we?" he asked plaintively.
Let's see, the FedEx Cup winner doesn't want to talk about the FedEx Cup. Neither does the BMW Championship winner. The intensity of FedEx Cup buzzkill is apparently at Category 4 strength.
Cameron Morfit, also on golf.com:
Unless you subscribe to the idea that sex appeal is a pocket protector and a calculator, the Tour's current math-heavy approach is a big part of the problem, even ignoring its terrible results.
Bob Carney at GolfDigest.com shares reader letters while Thomas Bonk reveals the disastrous ratings (at least the public knows a soulless golf course when it sees it):
The third round Saturday of the BMW Championship had a 1.1 overnight rating on NBC, down from a 2.6 in 2007; and Sunday's fourth round had a 1.2 overnight rating, down from a 3.2 in 2007.

Steve Elling questions why the top 30 to reach East Lake are getting Masters and U.S. Open invitations.

The FedEx points structure was re-jiggered this season to weight the playoff performances more strongly and to de-emphasize the overall season. Thus, journeymen pros like Kevin Sutherland and Dudley Hart, who each finished second in one of the three FedEx Cup series events to date, have cemented a spot in the first two majors next year.

It borders on absurdity. If I were a decision-maker at Augusta or the USGA, I'm not sure I'd listen to another self-serving pitch from the tour ever again. After months of foot-dragging, the tour revamped the FedEx rules in March, well after the Open and Masters exemptions had been re-upped for another year. Thus, if the tour can change its rules in midseason, then the USGA and Augusta National should do likewise by flushing the FedEx exemption category completely, effective immediately.

Broadly, the Masters traditionally required non-winners from the previous year to finish the season in the top 30 on the PGA Tour money list or inside the top 50 in the final world rankings in order to secure an invitation. There are five players in the 30-man field in Atlanta who don't appear likely to accomplish either, having taken the farcical FedEx freeway to Augusta and Bethpage Black, the U.S. Open site next summer.

In the span of 21 days -- or even less time for one-week one-offs like Hart and Sutherland -- a half-dozen players have cracked the Masters and Open field, barring the rescinding of the two major-championship exemption rules, which will soon be reviewed by their governing bodies.

Augusta National officials already have indicated that the club is keeping an eye on the FedEx exemption provision, while the USGA Championship Committee will conduct its next meeting Oct. 31. Speaking as a USGA member, the issue had better be on the agenda.

Vijay To Finally Speak About Trauma Of Winning $10 Million**

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Only two days after passing on interviews with NBC or the assembled media, Vijay Singh has gathered his thoughts and is finally prepared to discuss those those heartfelt thoughts that the immediate aftermath of his T44 at Bellerive precluded him from sharing.

HASTILY ARRANGED MEDIA ALERT
Vijay Singh Teleconference

Members of the media are invited to take part in a teleconference with Vijay Singh.

DATE: Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008

TIME: 4:30 p.m. ET

Vijay Can Crawl Backwards Around East Lake And Still Win FedEx Cup

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Doug Ferguson breaks the bad news to all six fans of the current FedEx Cup structure: the playoffs are over and they still have the Super Bowl to play.

With one Playoff event remaining, the FedExCup essentially is over.

Vijay Singh, who won the first two events, tied for 44th and earned enough points that all he has to do is complete four rounds at THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola in two weeks to collect the $10 million payoff.

Villegas, a 26-year-old Colombian in his third year on TOUR, finished at 15-under 265 and collected $1.26 million.
Bob Harig puts it in even more brutal perspective:
Singh can show up in Atlanta, play left-handed one day, blindfolded the next, shoot 100 during each round -- but as long as he completes four rounds he will be crowned the FedEx champion, receive a cool $9 million in cash, with $1 million deferred, and pocket some Tour Championship tip money as well.

How easily can Vijay Singh win the $10 million playoff bonus? Even if he didn't break 100 any of the four days at the Tour Championship, as long as he plays all 72 holes and doesn't get disqualified, the money is his.
But at least Vijay expressed his joy at clinching the $10 million.
Yep, Singh declined interviews with NBC, Golf Channel, print reporters. No words of thanks to FedEx or BMW or the PGA Tour or even Camilo Villegas, who won his first PGA Tour event and basically made it impossible for anyone to catch Singh -- unless he misses his tee time in Atlanta, gets disqualified or decides to stay at home and begin practicing for next year.
Speaking of next year, might this be a bad time to bring up the story I wrote last year for Golf World recommending a true playoff ending to prevent this little mini-debacle from happening? Or that I argued my case with Steve Dennis, FedEx Cup points guru who helped develop the increase volatility (which I think should stay...they just need a new way to end the fun at East Lake)?

Geoff Ogilvy was asked what he thought of the state of the FedEx Cup.
"If I make the Tour Championship I make it. If I don't, I really don't give a f...," the 2006 US Open champion said after the third round.

"I'm not going to lie in bed tonight thinking about what I have to do tomorrow to get in. It's not the Tour Championship it used to be.

"It probably meant more before than it does now, because it was a reward for 40 weeks.

"Now it's a nod to the year and making the cut at (the first two play-off events). The four weeks (of play-offs) are as important as the 40 preceding them."
Okay I'll give a little. They can just go back to last year's points to retain regular season relevancy, make East Lake an ADT-like finish and everyone wins! Including, let us not forget, charity.

"Unfortunately, this is what the post-Tiger golf world will likely look like."

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I've wondered when we'd see a mainstream media rant about the state of golf. It seems the LPGA's boneheaded moves combined with the PGA Tour's odd green-lighting of the media room execution chamber lit a fire under the AP's Tim Dahlberg.

Remember, this went out on the wires...a sampling:

With TV ratings plunging even before the start of the NFL season and the concept of the FedEx Cup still lost on millions of golf fans, the tour apparently thought that putting a few rows of seats behind mirrors in the media tent so people could watch the sweaty media ask a few questions to equally sweaty players would be a great way to allow fans to bond with their favorite players.
What they didn't count on was that reporters might not like the idea of being on display like criminals in a police lineup. One packed up his stuff and left, while others are boycotting the interview room all together, taking a cue from players who try to escape it whenever they can, too.
Too bad, because there's nothing like listening to Singh regale the media with tales of great 7-irons and putts that were so good they had to go in.
What a guy, that Veej, clearly enjoying himself so much that even the folks in the cheap seats could see he could barely tear himself away after five minutes of going over birdies and bogeys to head back to the range.
Imagine telling your buddies about that the next day at the office.
"He was close enough to touch, if we hadn't been behind the one-way mirrors, that is. You know, I've never noticed how he takes his visor off and wipes his brow when he sits down, either. And the look of exasperation he gave when a reporter dared ask him about his 3-putt? Priceless."
Unfortunately, this is what the post-Tiger golf world will likely look like. Boring players who make no effort to connect with the fans going through the motions only because they have to.

Here's what I don't get about the media room viewing area. It may not sound like a big deal to most, but consider that Tim Finchem did not sit in there for his chat with the media for obvious reasons. There's a bit of privacy lost. Now, players are already careful with the media as it is, but these press sessions are still where we learn the little details that humanize them to the average fan. But with an audience behind mirrored walls, the players are just a bit more unlikely to open up.

Is that something the Tour really wants?