The 2019 FedExCup "Playoffs" Are Off To Pretty Rough Start

Just to review the week in case you weren’t watching the commencement of the 2019 PGA Tour “Playoffs”...

Tiger WD’d and it’ll take a major improvement for him to defend his title at East Lake.

PGA Tour Live’s Featured Group coverage exposed horrendous examples of slow play masked by normal golf tournament coverage that jumps around a course full of players. The clips go viral and highlight Bryson DeChambeau’s slow play. The episode is a reminder of how unappealing it is to see every shot of every player sometimes, much less pay for such a privilege as the Tour believes will happen starting in 2022.

The Northern Trust’s weekend was totally overshadowed by a slow play controversy.

The PGA Tour added to the distraction by issuing a fluffy Staff-reported story during the final round, prompting more on the news of a ShotLink-leveraged solution to this problem instead of the playoff event playing out.

Patrick Reed won in an oddly flat final round despite a great leaderboard. The shockingly lukewarm applause after Reed’s final putt summed up the flat finish.

Reed jumped from 50th to 2nd in the FedExCup points, a silly leap if we are to believe claims of season long points and rewarding early season play mattering.

The CBS team sounded giddiest talking about their final broadcast of 2019 and Saturday night goodbye party.

But hey there’s time and a new, wacky format awaiting at East Lake—Patrick Reed, one win and four top 10’s, would be only two strokes back of Brooks Koepka if the Tour Championship started today, even though Koepka won three times and went T2-1-2-T4 in the majors.

The whole 2019 playoff thing could work out well and get way better. It better.