The 19th whole-lot-of-money series
PGA Tour still hasn't figured out how to create actual playoffs; Stray Shots
Playoffs? Don’t talk about playoffs. You kidding me? Playoffs?! (Matthew Maxey/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The 19th edition of the FedEx Cup playoffs started Thursday, and we still can’t get the verbiage right.
It’s not a playoff, a fundamental issue with the now three-week-long postseason series. As it has been for the last 18 years, it’s a glorified money grab for the best players on the PGA Tour.
What was announced in November of 2005 as a season-long points program with what the tour called at the time “the largest guaranteed bonus pool of any major sport” has morphed into the nobody-cares-series-of-diminishing-field-sizes. And instead of paying so much to the participants at the end of the playoffs, it instead pays those who had a good regular season up front.
That’s how far off the PGA Tour has dropped the ball on its initial mission of creating a postseason playoff.
When then-commissioner Tim Finchem discussed the reasons for creating the playoffs, one of the primary focuses was the need to define the PGA Tour and create a real season that would include a year-long competition and a dramatic finish.
Finchem went on to say that golf is the only major sport that doesn't have a stronger finish than our regular season — a.k.a. a playoff system, if you will — that balances out what’s happening during the year with what’s happening week to week.
For 18 years, it’s fair to say the PGA Tour still hasn’t come up with an answer to Finchem’s dilemma.
Top players skipping postseason events … reduction in the payouts for playoff events … making the finale as a 72-hole stroke-play event just like almost every other PGA Tour event on the schedule.
It’s just laughable that they still haven’t figured it out.
Golf’s two television networks that work with the four major sports — CBS and NBC — are familiar with playoffs and understand their value.
Getting eyeballs is what they are looking for, and playing another 72-hole stroke play as a finale just doesn’t cut it.
They want a real playoff, where the best player that week, not the best player over the year, wins the FedEx Cup.
A popular format that has been discussed but rejected by the PGA Tour and its players is having the top 30 in the Tour Championship with a 36-hole cut to 16 for a fresh restart that again cuts to eight players a for a final 18 holes shootout.
How do the networks and the Strategic Sports Group (SSG) — the $1.5 billion investor in the PGA Tour who is also in favor of a real playoff format — get the idea across the finish line?
This is when new tour CEO Brian Rolapp comes in.
The former No. 2 at the NFL, Rolapp may not have the same golf experience that Finchem or current commissioner Jay Monahan have, but he does know television and how to give the fans what they desire.
Also, with both CBS and NBC being longtime football networks, Rolapp knows them and speaks their language. And their language is making money, which only comes with eyeballs and ratings.
As football season progresses this fall, the PGA Tour will be discussing the 2026 playoff format. Supposing they wish to use the word correctly, they will have to change the format to something that resembles what baseball, basketball, football and hockey have experienced for years — an elimination playoff in which anyone who qualifies for the postseason has a chance to be crowned champion.
Stray Shots:
By Peter Kaufman
The FedEx Cup playoffs are started, which surely can change Keegan Bradley’s views of who is hot and who is not as we are fast coming up on the Ryder Cup captain’s decision time. Here are some more names to think about.
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