PLAYOFFS?!?!?!?
September 5th 2008 17:13
Ah, Jim Mora, will you're rant ever get old? I say no. No it won't.
Anyways, interesting article yesterday regarding the FEDEX CUP from Bob Harig at ESPN.
Let me see, the players didn't like the playoffs last year, because Tiger/Phil could take some playoff tourneys off and still win it. Now they don't like the crapshoot that it's become, and rewarding people who simply make cuts over someone who finishes Top-10 then misses the cut. Understood.
Though you would never hear it, I believe the FedEx Cup has been disappointing to the PGA. The vast majority of people (myself, included) don't really care about it, despite all the Mike Weir/Wayne Gretzky commercials talking about beards and enforcers and whatnot. So, why don't people care?
1) It's after the majors, or otherwise known as THE ONLY FOUR TOURNAMENTS THE MAJORITY OF GOLF FANS CARE ABOUT. Which means football season. Which means insta-death to ratings. Who in the past has watched the Tour Championship? That's right no one. Why? Because there's some NFL game on at the same time. (Or, in years past. NFL AND MLB playoffs.)
2) Nobody follows or cares about point systems that are impossible to follow along when all it means is some mega-rich golfer is going to be mega-richer. People DO follow the Ryder Cup points. Why? Because people care about following those guys when nothing but pride (and in the case of Mark O'Meara, charity for his favorite kids prep school) is on the line. They like to see the drama of ZERO money on the line, yet the cream of the crop looking like they're about to yak up some morning grapefruit.
So, how do you change it to let people care more?
1) You kill the playoff system. Fine by me and I'm sure a healthy percentage of the golfing public. No one really cares that Vijay Singh is going to be the FedEx champ and $10 million richer, when all it is now, is who can play the best over four weeks instead of forty.
2) You dramatically change the point system and stop with these monster fields. As Hunter Mahan said in the above story: ""You can't have 144 guys starting," Mahan said. "They don't let every team in the playoffs, they cut it down pretty good." Exactly. This is the equivalent of letting 26-28 teams in the NFL playoffs. It makes no sense.
Harig suggests starting at 100, then dwindling down every week. That's not good enough. I want to reward the best PGA players for a year of good play, or success at a really high level (i.e. THE MAJORS). And why do we have to wittle down the field. Why not four weeks at say the 60 best. And let's stop rewarding guys who consistently finish 31st and then will have one sixth place and make the field of 70. Awful.
On, top of that, let's make the scoring system super easy to follow. So, here's my proposal.
Regular PGA tour event:
Take the Top 10% - usually between 12-17 players.
Give 10 points to the winner an extra point for every shot he wins the tournament by. Ex: Anthony Kim earned 15 points at the Wachovia this year (10 for the win 5 for the strokes he won by). Steve Lowery earned 10 points for Pebble Beach (10 for the win tied for second).
Give 9 points for second, 8 for third, so one and 10th-whatever is left in the 10% gets one points.
The Players Championship WGC tournaments points are doubles. For the majors, points are tripled.
Take the top 60 players ties, and let them play for four weeks. No alternates.
For the playoff tournaments we stretch it to Top-10 out of 60 get points and the winner receiving 4x the normal PGA tournament (since this is the playoffs).
I've ran a rough sketch of what the numbers would be after two rounds of the playoffs, here's what it looks like:
Vijay Singh - 160
Tiger Woods - 118
Sergio Garcia - 114
Padraig Harrington - 107
Justin Leonard - 90
Jim Furyk - 89
Mike Weir - 87
Phil Mickelson - 82
Stewart Cink - 81
Ben Curtis - 81
Couple of observations:
1) Tiger only played in six tournaments and is still second place. Maybe this would turn into the $10M Tiger Woods Annuity? Likely, but so would any other non-crapshoot style format. At least this one rewards the guys more who played the best over seven months.
2) Under this system, alll of the people listed still have a chance to win the FedEx Cup. Granted Leonard through Curtis would have to likely go 1st-1st or 1st-2nd to have a chance (not to mention Vijay would have to miss out on the top-10 twice). But with a good top-3 Sergio and Padraig with Vijay bricking this week, would at least leave some drama for the Tour Championship.
3) It's easy to follow. If Sergio is 46 points behind Vijay, and gains 20 on him this week, without searching online, you know he needs to finish 4th or better w/o Vijay finishing in the Top-10 to pass him.
There are other ideals behind this, and the system is kind of flawed (example, Greg Norman would've finished in the Top-60 based on his Open Championship performance. Which might not be the worst thing, as Norman used to = RATINGS, and this could lead to other good stories in the majors to be back in the spotlight, such as Rocco.). But, I want to do some tweaking on the system and hopefully have something better by '09.
Anyways, interesting article yesterday regarding the FEDEX CUP from Bob Harig at ESPN.
Let me see, the players didn't like the playoffs last year, because Tiger/Phil could take some playoff tourneys off and still win it. Now they don't like the crapshoot that it's become, and rewarding people who simply make cuts over someone who finishes Top-10 then misses the cut. Understood.
Though you would never hear it, I believe the FedEx Cup has been disappointing to the PGA. The vast majority of people (myself, included) don't really care about it, despite all the Mike Weir/Wayne Gretzky commercials talking about beards and enforcers and whatnot. So, why don't people care?
1) It's after the majors, or otherwise known as THE ONLY FOUR TOURNAMENTS THE MAJORITY OF GOLF FANS CARE ABOUT. Which means football season. Which means insta-death to ratings. Who in the past has watched the Tour Championship? That's right no one. Why? Because there's some NFL game on at the same time. (Or, in years past. NFL AND MLB playoffs.)
2) Nobody follows or cares about point systems that are impossible to follow along when all it means is some mega-rich golfer is going to be mega-richer. People DO follow the Ryder Cup points. Why? Because people care about following those guys when nothing but pride (and in the case of Mark O'Meara, charity for his favorite kids prep school) is on the line. They like to see the drama of ZERO money on the line, yet the cream of the crop looking like they're about to yak up some morning grapefruit.
So, how do you change it to let people care more?
1) You kill the playoff system. Fine by me and I'm sure a healthy percentage of the golfing public. No one really cares that Vijay Singh is going to be the FedEx champ and $10 million richer, when all it is now, is who can play the best over four weeks instead of forty.
2) You dramatically change the point system and stop with these monster fields. As Hunter Mahan said in the above story: ""You can't have 144 guys starting," Mahan said. "They don't let every team in the playoffs, they cut it down pretty good." Exactly. This is the equivalent of letting 26-28 teams in the NFL playoffs. It makes no sense.
Harig suggests starting at 100, then dwindling down every week. That's not good enough. I want to reward the best PGA players for a year of good play, or success at a really high level (i.e. THE MAJORS). And why do we have to wittle down the field. Why not four weeks at say the 60 best. And let's stop rewarding guys who consistently finish 31st and then will have one sixth place and make the field of 70. Awful.
On, top of that, let's make the scoring system super easy to follow. So, here's my proposal.
Regular PGA tour event:
Take the Top 10% - usually between 12-17 players.
Give 10 points to the winner an extra point for every shot he wins the tournament by. Ex: Anthony Kim earned 15 points at the Wachovia this year (10 for the win 5 for the strokes he won by). Steve Lowery earned 10 points for Pebble Beach (10 for the win tied for second).
Give 9 points for second, 8 for third, so one and 10th-whatever is left in the 10% gets one points.
The Players Championship WGC tournaments points are doubles. For the majors, points are tripled.
Take the top 60 players ties, and let them play for four weeks. No alternates.
For the playoff tournaments we stretch it to Top-10 out of 60 get points and the winner receiving 4x the normal PGA tournament (since this is the playoffs).
I've ran a rough sketch of what the numbers would be after two rounds of the playoffs, here's what it looks like:
Vijay Singh - 160
Tiger Woods - 118
Sergio Garcia - 114
Padraig Harrington - 107
Justin Leonard - 90
Jim Furyk - 89
Mike Weir - 87
Phil Mickelson - 82
Stewart Cink - 81
Ben Curtis - 81
Couple of observations:
1) Tiger only played in six tournaments and is still second place. Maybe this would turn into the $10M Tiger Woods Annuity? Likely, but so would any other non-crapshoot style format. At least this one rewards the guys more who played the best over seven months.
2) Under this system, alll of the people listed still have a chance to win the FedEx Cup. Granted Leonard through Curtis would have to likely go 1st-1st or 1st-2nd to have a chance (not to mention Vijay would have to miss out on the top-10 twice). But with a good top-3 Sergio and Padraig with Vijay bricking this week, would at least leave some drama for the Tour Championship.
3) It's easy to follow. If Sergio is 46 points behind Vijay, and gains 20 on him this week, without searching online, you know he needs to finish 4th or better w/o Vijay finishing in the Top-10 to pass him.
There are other ideals behind this, and the system is kind of flawed (example, Greg Norman would've finished in the Top-60 based on his Open Championship performance. Which might not be the worst thing, as Norman used to = RATINGS, and this could lead to other good stories in the majors to be back in the spotlight, such as Rocco.). But, I want to do some tweaking on the system and hopefully have something better by '09.
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