When an underwhelming product is extensively modified (say, for example, Greg Norman’s Irish golf course, Doonbeg) or even entirely discarded (like, say, Greg Norman’s Stonehaven design in Scottsdale or Greg Norman’s Great White course in Florida or Greg Norman’s Experience at Koele in Hawaii), the ultimate goal is something better.
But can that be said of the FedEx Cup playoffs system, which has been tweaked so frequently since its 2007 inception? It depends on what you believe the intent of the FedEx Cup is, and what you believe may not be aligned with what the mandarins at PGA Tour headquarters think.
Every change to the playoffs formula — how many guys can qualify, the number of events, how points are accumulated and weighted, the staggered scoring — all share one objective: to tether the postseason more snugly to the results of the regular season. In effect, to serve a function antithetical to that of playoffs in other major sports. The result of such manipulation is that golf’s playoffs are not actually playoffs. Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said that good teams make the playoffs but hot teams win them. Regular season heroics guarantee zilch in the postseason, beyond perhaps a home-field advantage, but nothing material to a contest. The PGA Tour, however, wants the marketing punch of promoting playoffs — which conjure a win-or-die suspense — without actually subjecting its players to a win-or-die system.
Playoffs are about volatility and shock upsets. Ask the ’08 Patriots or the ’23 Bruins. By comparison, the paternalistic PGA Tour has spent almost two decades trying to offset those essential elements and attempting to engineer outcomes that mirror the results of the regular season. Points accumulated through the Wyndham Championship, the last stop before the playoffs, are carried all the way through to the grand finale at the Tour Championship and used to determine how many strokes under par a player will begin (Scottie Scheffler, No. 1 in points, will begin next week’s tournament 10-under-par). The Tour wants its FedEx Cup champion to be someone who performed consistently well all year, not someone who got hot for a couple weeks in August, so rolling regular season points into the playoffs helps stack the deck toward that outcome.
Hideki Matsuyama raises the FedEx Cup TPC Championship trophy to the crowd during the final round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship golf tournament at TPC Southwind. Mandatory Credit: Steve…
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