FedEx Cup Playoffs Set the Stage for Next Season

Not so long ago the Writers Guild of America went on a 14-week strike to protest the lack of compensation its members received for their services in comparison to the considerable profit earned by large studios such as NBC Universal and Warner Bros.

Unfortunately for fans of the popular Fox television program 24, which stars Kiefer Sutherland as rouge badass Jack Bauer, who often leaves it all on the field to defend America's interests against bad guys at the risk of his own well-being, the strike resulted in a longer than expected offseason. 

To bridge the gap between seasons six and seven, Fox produced a television movie titled "Redemption" to give us a glimpse of what our hero had been up to since we last saw him, as well as set up the upcoming Day 7.

Excruciating as the initial wait for the highly-anticipated Day 7 had been, loyal viewers waited almost another two months between the airing of the television movie and the actual start of the new season. In the mean time, there was much salivating and pining for new episodes to finally hit the air. The layover also allowed for much speculation, debate and hype.

In this scenario Tiger Woods is Jack Bauer, Phil Mickelson is Tony Almeida and I suppose Tim Finchem is the President of the United States. Perhaps we can cast Lee Westwood or Rory Sabbatini to play the terrorist in possession of a nuclear weapon. Either way, I feel the same way about the FedEx Cup as I did about that made for television movie designed to hold me over and compel me to tune in next season.

I realize that in a legitimate playoff system, the winner would have to win at some point to claim the championship; Jim Furyk could've left East Lake with a check for $10 million without ever doing so in 2009.

And in order to really have a watchable season-ending championship, fans should be able to calculate who needs to do what in order to win. For example, the Celtics are down two points with four seconds left on the clock. A Paul Pierce three-pointer at the buzzer gives them another NBA Championship, but a layup by Rajon Rondo, who is vastly underrated, means overtime.

Even with a fancy scenario calculator on PGATour.com and a little green updated standings box aside of the players names during the NBC telecast, I couldn't help but think that understanding this complex points system was eerily similar to figuring out the conversion rate of Austrian schillings to U.S. dollars prior to the implementation of the Euro.

Dysfunctional as it may be, the FedEx Cup delivered what golf fans everywhere had been missing since the final round of The Masters - Tiger and Phil in the spotlight on Sunday. Along the way we were introduced to secondary characters like Heath Slocum and Steve Stricker, who had a legitimate shot at stealing the Cup from Woods if not for back-to-back bogeys on 16 and 17 on Sunday.

But the only actors that matter right now are Woods and Mickelson, and the final scene in the made-for-television movie that is the FedEx Cup served to set up a showdown between the two in 2010, a year that is arguably the most critical juncture of their respective careers.

Woods return from major reconstructive knee surgery is either a remarkable success or stunning failure depending on who you talk to. On one side of the argument, the World's No. 1 player won six times, took home the FedEx Cup and will almost certainly walk away with PGA Tour Player of the Year honors. Then again, Woods failed to win a major championship, and his performance during the four most important weeks of the season has become the ultimate barometer to measure his achievement.

"Major championships are the biggest events, and unfortunately I didn't win any of the four," Woods said prior to the Tour Championship. "But as far as the season, it's certainly been one of my most consistent seasons I've ever had. To have this many high finishes, I think it's pretty good. I think excluding a match play event, if you just do stroke play events, two of them outside the Top 10, and one of them I was in 11th, I think that's a pretty good season."

In 2010, the majors return to a few of the game's most historic venues. The U.S. Open will be played at Pebble Beach Golf Links, the site of Woods' record 15-shot victory in 2000. The Open Championship heads back to the Old Course at St. Andrews, where Woods has won twice. Woods will also be hungry to break through at Augusta National, where he is winless since 2005. The year's final major, the PGA Championship, heads to Wisconsin's Whistling Straits, and many experts will spend the weeks leading up to the majors labeling it as Woods' last hurdle to a Grand Slam.

Looking at that schedule, it's almost inconceivable that Woods could once more go winless in the majors. But then again, it's hard to ignore just how much emphasis the 14-time major champion puts on these premier tournaments and how they're becoming such stressful events that even a player as mentally tough as Tiger isn't immune to cracking. The pressure to pass Jack Nicklaus is mounting and it will build considerably as long as this winless streak continues.

Mickelson's winless streak in major championships dates back the 2006 Masters, and while what happened at Winged Foot during the 2006 U.S. Open won't ever really be forgotten, a positive major memory will help to push aside the rather large shadow that failure has been casting on his career.

At 39 years of age, could Mickelson's window be closing? With the success of men like Vijay Singh and Kenny Perry well into their 40s, it would be irrational to say that the best years of his golf life are behind him, but the sooner he gets another Green Jacket or wins a Claret Jug the better.

I have nothing against Angel Cabrera, Lucas Glover, Stewart Cink and Y.E. Yang, but as far as major championships go, this year was less than spectacular. At the end of every season of 24, Jack Bauer saves the day, but every so often his wife dies or he's sent away to a secret Chinese prison. Tiger Woods is still the most dominant player in golf and any other player on the planet would've been tickled with the success he enjoyed this season, but Woods is probably vowing to come back stronger than ever behind closed doors.

When I flipped off the television Sunday evening after watching Woods and Mickelson stand side-by-side displaying the symbols of their success, I was disappointed with the plot and ultimate ending of the 2009 PGA Tour season, but I whole-heartedly believed that 2010 would be much better.

The FedEx Cup Playoffs aren't irrelevant, but we can't be fooled into thinking that the season doesn't ultimately end at the PGA Championship. It was a nice preview of things to come, nothing more nothing less. I'll be waiting for new episodes to start say around the first full week of April. 

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