FedExCup Finish Should be Exciting, but Don’t Call it a Playoff

The PGA Tour has made some minor changes to its playoff point system designed to increase volatility and create excitement by giving more players a realistic chance of winning the Cup going into The TOUR Championship.

Unlike the NBA or NFL playoffs when a season's worth of work pays big dividends because of the crucial home field or home court advantage gained by the team with the better regular season record, golf's version of the playoffs makes it possible for the lowest seed to basically catch the No. 1 player with a dominant performance. Again, it's unlikely but possible. I suppose this would be the same as the Denver Nuggets upsetting the top-seeded Seattle Supersonics in the mid-90's but when you break it down statistically, it just sounds awful. 

Two-time U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen snuck into the field for the Barclays by virtue of his solid finish last week in Greensboro. Janzen has only survived the cut in 11 of 20 PGA Tour events he’s entered this year. He has one top ten finish (T10 PODS Championship) and three top 25’s. That effort was good enough to make him the last man into the field (No. 144) for this week’s event, the first in four “manufactured” post-season tournaments that will decide the 2008 FedExCup winner.

By comparison, the top-seeded player participating, Kenny Perry, who was only topped in the regular season standings by Tiger Woods (who, of course, won’t be competing because of his knee) made 20 of 22 cuts, won three times and finished in the top 10 on seven different occasions. He begins the Barclays with 99,500 points; Janzen starts with 92,070, just 7,430 back of Perry.

If Janzen finishes second and Perry misses the cut, he’ll be just 30 points behind the top seed’s total heading into next week.

Before the points were reset heading in the playoffs, Perry had accumulated 20,878 FedExCup points to Janzens paltry total of 1,721 points. The earned difference (19,157) compared to the new reset gap (7,430) is 11,727 points.

This year points were added in the first three Playoff events by increasing by 2,000 points awarded to each place receiving points. For example, a second-place finish was worth 5,400 points; it is now worth 7,400 points.

Now I can’t argue with the excitement this new points scale or the practice of resetting points after the regular season has concluded has created but in no way, shape or form should this process be considered a playoff.

If Lee Janzen happens to capture some old magic and win this week at the Barclays and Kenny Perry misses the cut, it doesn’t mean they’ve had equal seasons but in the standings they’ll be almost identical.

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