Fed Up: Has the PGA Tour got it wrong?
BY Grant Dodd | 07 Sep 2007
Hands up if you understand what the FedEx Cup is all about. Keep your hand up if you care to find out. Unfortunately for the USPGA Tour, the general response to the matter of their newest and shiniest toy is closely related to the second question- at the moment, the care factor just isn’t there.
The PGA Tour’s most ambitious initiative in years has met largely with apathy and disinterest from the golfing public, meaning that the Tour’s take on the significance of the event has mostly failed to translate across to its target audience.
There are some fairly obvious reasons why this has happened. The first is simply that the system is convoluted, confusing and beyond the comprehension and attention span of the average sports fan.
The second is that having a concept that marks as its foundation principle the addition of another 10 million dollars into the bank account of someone who is already as rich as Croesus is hardly a way of engaging the masses. In many ways the profligacy of the event is at once its greatest strength, and weakness.
Furthermore, the numerous subtexts that run underneath the main event (elimination of players each week) has only a minor level of interest, because in golf, like most sport, no-one remembers who came second, let alone last.
And so, the FedEx Cup arrives on the scene, if not completely unloved then certainly under appreciated. In many ways this is a great pity as golf is a game that needs new ideas. Tradition has always been its strongest suit, but that tradition needs an injection of vigour and vitality, a factor that the USPGA Tour clearly recognize. The fact that it has not galvanized greater support must grate on the masterminds behind it to no end, but it nonetheless clearly points to a conclusion that a number of changes will need to be made in order for the FedEx Cup to attain the prestige and credibility that it desires.
But what of the players in the midst of it all? According to a leading Australian player on the US Tour , there is to be a player-only meeting after the “play-off” series has finished to discuss a number of concerns that the player body has with the concept. Amongst those concerns are the clauses that allow certain players to miss events and still qualify for future rounds, a notion at odds with the “play-off” ideal. As my source told me, ” It is like Collingwood saying, no, we’re not going to turn up for the first game of the AFL semi’s, but we’re still fronting up for the grand final in a few weeks time.”
This pointedly refers to Tiger Woods’ decision not to play in the first event of the series. Dress it up however you like, but the world number one taking a rain check on the first round of the PGA Tour’s most significant initiative in years damned it. So much of the Fed –Ex Cup, like the greater PGA Tour, is about Woods. Tiger Woods equals media interest equals crowds equals TV ratings equals sponsors. In the US, Tiger Woods and tournament golf are symbiotic, and decisions like the one he made here resonate far and wide.
The simmering tensions of a power struggle have never been that far below the surface, and have emerged once more on a different front. This week Phil Mickelson drew a line in the sand, and after winning the Deutsche Bank event, pulled out of this weeks event in Chicago. Without being privy to the behind the scenes machinations, it is impossible to say whether there are ulterior motives. Whilst the public pronouncements mention family and a hectic schedule, there is a strong likelihood that Mickelson knows that his involvement and support is crucial to the legitimacy of the event. The Woods/Mickelson relationship and the perceived rivalry inherent to it is one of the few real marketing taglines of modern professional golf.
It may have been decided in the backrooms of some athlete management company that the promise of delivering that “made for TV” story to the PGA Tour, four weeks in a row, is worth something over and above the zillions already on the table.
It would seem that the FedEx Cup has some ego’s to placate, not to mention issues to resolve.
