I just need to vent about something that has been bothering me since I finished watching last week’s Tour Championship. My big gripe centers around the season’s finale being a glorified net event.
To break it down, Dustin Johnson won the tournament after he started the week -10. However, he didn’t shoot the lowest score for the week.
This all came about because the PGA Tour determined they didn’t want all the points scenarios for their FedEx Cup playing out in realtime during the Tour Championship. They also didn’t want one player winning the tournament and another winning the FedEx Cup.
To be fair, I can totally understand why they want those outcomes. I just do not see that having players start at different scores is the way to go about it. The whole essence of tournament golf is that everyone starts from the same spot and the best score wins. That essence has been ripped away from the season-ending event.
It would be unfair of me to not suggest a different solution.
First, stop calling these ending events the playoffs! What we have is not a playoff because every exempt player gets into them. If anything, cut off the entrants much earlier than the Top 125.
For the actual tournament, I see two scenarios. The first being, make the Tour Championship match-play. The qualifiers play each other in a single-elimination, seeded format (you know, like actual playoffs). The last man standing wins it all.
My other idea is much more palatable for TV folks because they always shudder at the thought of an uninspiring match-play final. So, we keep a three-tournament stretch and there is a payout based on the standings after the first two. This satisfies the desire to payout based on season performance. For the Tour Championship, everyone resets, and the stroke-play winner takes home the top prize.
You may agree or disagree with my solutions. If I’m being honest, I don’t even really care about a playoff for golf. I love watching the pros play and I understand the hierarchy of certain tournaments and their varying levels of prestige. I don’t need the prestige of the FedEx Cup shoved down my throat when I know it is a cash grab (which I have no problem with, you do you PGA Tour).
I’d love to hear what you out there think about what we have now and what you would want to see instead.