A blockbuster end to the PGA Tour season. A season-long points competition. A bonus worth five times the typical first-place check.
If that sounds like the FedEx Cup, turn back the calendar to the age of persimmon woods and sansabelt pants.
This was the Vantage Championship in 1986, and it was designed to give golf a compelling finish. That became the precursor to the Tour Championship, which soon became a tournament for the rich to get richer at the end of a very long year in golf.
Enter the FedEx Cup, the biggest shake-up in golf during Tim Finchem's 13 years as commissioner.
For the last 50 years, the golf season has been defined by four major championships that begin in April with the Masters and end in August with the PGA Championship. The FedEx Cup is a points race that starts with the opening tee shot at Kapalua and concludes with four “playoff” events that start next week outside New York.
The winner gets $10 million, which the tour touts as the richest prize in sports.
Phil Mickelson compared it with a new event in 1934 called the Augusta National Invitation Tournament, which later became known as the Masters and now ranks among the most prestigious in golf.
“There's a good chance the FedEx Cup will one day have that same allure,” Mickelson said. “There's also a chance that four years from now, it will be a flop. I don't know.”
Even before the first shot in the playoffs, the tour lost its hope of all the stars competing four weeks in a row. Tiger Woods, the No. 1 player in the world, said he would sit out first tournament at The Barclays because he was tired from winning a World Golf Championship and the PGA Championship in consecutive weeks.
“My body is spent and I need a break,” Woods said.
Under this cloud of uncertainty, the FedEx Cup heads toward a conclusion when The Barclays starts Aug. 23 at Westchester Country Club. Only 144 players qualify for the “PGA Tour Playoffs.” Week by week, the field will be whittled down until the top 30 reach Atlanta for the Tour Championship at East Lake.
“It's going to be interesting to see how everything holds up,” Woods said earlier this month. “It's a lot of golf later in the year.”
To make it happen, Finchem overhauled a schedule that had been virtually the same for more than 20 years.
He took two events from the middle of the summer and crammed them into the four-week stretch that comprise the playoffs. He moved five events from the heart of the schedule and stuck them in the fall, after the FedEx Cup is over, knowing they would have minimal relevance and weak fields.
And he persuaded FedEx to pour $40 million into the plan, hopeful the best players would buy into it.
The idea was for golf to be compelling beyond the majors, and before football takes over American sporting interests. The Tour Championship ends Sept. 16, seven weeks earlier than last year.
“The reason other sports find it easy to define their seasons is because it's always about the end,” Finchem said when he first started to put together the pieces of the FedEx Cup. “Not only do we have a weak ending, it's overshadowed by spikes of interest you have from big tournaments. We need a culminating event that's special and that you have to play hard to get into.”
Despite a massive marketing blitz, players are still slow to explain how it works.
“I don't know nothing about the FedEx Cup,” Boo Weekley said. “I just know I'm playing golf, and that's all that matters to me.”
Here's the crib sheet on the FedEx Cup:
-Points have been awarded from the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship through the week after the PGA Championship, with the top 144 players eligible for The Barclays.
-Points are reset going into the playoffs to keep someone like Woods from having too large of an advantage. Woods finished the regular season about 11,000 points ahead of Vijay Singh. When the playoffs begin, Woods will be the No. 1 seed with 100,000 points, while Singh is No. 2 with 99,000 points. The 144th player starts at 84,700.
-The winner of each of the first three playoff events gets 9,000 points, with 5,400 points for second on down to 85 points for last place. The Tour championship offers 10,300 points for first place.
It's a lot of math for players to digest, especially since they grew up studying a money list that got them into the Tour Championship.
“I don't know the breakdown of every point total, like what 15th place is, but I've got a general idea of what's going on,” Chad Campbell said. “I know if I finish first in the next three events, I'll be doing all right.”
Campbell was at No. 102 going into the final event before the playoffs, no guarantee of playing more than two playoff events.
Tour officials have said the top 15 in the FedEx Cup standings have the best chance of winning, and they were hopeful it would lead golfers to play more during the regular season. But none of the top players altered their schedules.
In some respects, the FedEx Cup will have been a success no matter who wins.
It is rare to see so many top players at the same tournament once the majors are over. Mickelson, Singh, Ernie Els, Adam Scott and British Open champion Padraig Harrington are among those who plan to play them all.
But those who play poorly might not be around very long.
The field at The Barclays will be cut to the top 120 players for the Deutsche Bank Championship. The top 70 will get into the BMW Championship in Chicago, with the top 30 advancing to the Tour Championship.
Each tournament has a separate purse of $7 million, just like always. So someone like Campbell could win the Deutsche Bank Championship the same week someone like Mickelson takes the lead in the FedEx Cup.
Along with confusion, there has been grumbling in the weeks leading up to the first-ever playoffs.
Some don't like the idea of being forced to play three straight weeks simply to qualify for the Tour Championship.
Scott Verplank is among those who for years measured a successful year on winning and finishing among the top 30 on the money list to get into the Tour Championship. Now he fears he might be worn out by the time he gets to East Lake.
“I know me better than anyone else, and my body is not going to hold up over four weeks,” said Verplank, who has been on tour for 20 years. “If I'm beat up and dead tired going to Atlanta, on a course where I feel I can win, what good is that? I'm probably stupid, but I'd rather win the Tour Championship than the FedEx Cup.”
Others question the payoff - deferred money into a retirement account instead of $10 million up front.
Woods was among those who felt the money should be paid out immediately, and this was one of the few times he didn't get his way. Others compared it to the World Series of Poker, when the winner can dive into a pile of cash he just won.
Some might not see this money for 30 years.
“If you have kids old enough to understand, they're more excited about the $10 million than we are because they're the ones who are going to end up getting it,” Toms said.
This was the Vantage Championship in 1986, and it was designed to give golf a compelling finish. That became the precursor to the Tour Championship, which soon became a tournament for the rich to get richer at the end of a very long year in golf.
Enter the FedEx Cup, the biggest shake-up in golf during Tim Finchem's 13 years as commissioner.
For the last 50 years, the golf season has been defined by four major championships that begin in April with the Masters and end in August with the PGA Championship. The FedEx Cup is a points race that starts with the opening tee shot at Kapalua and concludes with four “playoff” events that start next week outside New York.
The winner gets $10 million, which the tour touts as the richest prize in sports.
Phil Mickelson compared it with a new event in 1934 called the Augusta National Invitation Tournament, which later became known as the Masters and now ranks among the most prestigious in golf.
“There's a good chance the FedEx Cup will one day have that same allure,” Mickelson said. “There's also a chance that four years from now, it will be a flop. I don't know.”
Even before the first shot in the playoffs, the tour lost its hope of all the stars competing four weeks in a row. Tiger Woods, the No. 1 player in the world, said he would sit out first tournament at The Barclays because he was tired from winning a World Golf Championship and the PGA Championship in consecutive weeks.
“My body is spent and I need a break,” Woods said.
Under this cloud of uncertainty, the FedEx Cup heads toward a conclusion when The Barclays starts Aug. 23 at Westchester Country Club. Only 144 players qualify for the “PGA Tour Playoffs.” Week by week, the field will be whittled down until the top 30 reach Atlanta for the Tour Championship at East Lake.
“It's going to be interesting to see how everything holds up,” Woods said earlier this month. “It's a lot of golf later in the year.”
To make it happen, Finchem overhauled a schedule that had been virtually the same for more than 20 years.
He took two events from the middle of the summer and crammed them into the four-week stretch that comprise the playoffs. He moved five events from the heart of the schedule and stuck them in the fall, after the FedEx Cup is over, knowing they would have minimal relevance and weak fields.
And he persuaded FedEx to pour $40 million into the plan, hopeful the best players would buy into it.
The idea was for golf to be compelling beyond the majors, and before football takes over American sporting interests. The Tour Championship ends Sept. 16, seven weeks earlier than last year.
“The reason other sports find it easy to define their seasons is because it's always about the end,” Finchem said when he first started to put together the pieces of the FedEx Cup. “Not only do we have a weak ending, it's overshadowed by spikes of interest you have from big tournaments. We need a culminating event that's special and that you have to play hard to get into.”
Despite a massive marketing blitz, players are still slow to explain how it works.
“I don't know nothing about the FedEx Cup,” Boo Weekley said. “I just know I'm playing golf, and that's all that matters to me.”
Here's the crib sheet on the FedEx Cup:
-Points have been awarded from the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship through the week after the PGA Championship, with the top 144 players eligible for The Barclays.
-Points are reset going into the playoffs to keep someone like Woods from having too large of an advantage. Woods finished the regular season about 11,000 points ahead of Vijay Singh. When the playoffs begin, Woods will be the No. 1 seed with 100,000 points, while Singh is No. 2 with 99,000 points. The 144th player starts at 84,700.
-The winner of each of the first three playoff events gets 9,000 points, with 5,400 points for second on down to 85 points for last place. The Tour championship offers 10,300 points for first place.
It's a lot of math for players to digest, especially since they grew up studying a money list that got them into the Tour Championship.
“I don't know the breakdown of every point total, like what 15th place is, but I've got a general idea of what's going on,” Chad Campbell said. “I know if I finish first in the next three events, I'll be doing all right.”
Campbell was at No. 102 going into the final event before the playoffs, no guarantee of playing more than two playoff events.
Tour officials have said the top 15 in the FedEx Cup standings have the best chance of winning, and they were hopeful it would lead golfers to play more during the regular season. But none of the top players altered their schedules.
In some respects, the FedEx Cup will have been a success no matter who wins.
It is rare to see so many top players at the same tournament once the majors are over. Mickelson, Singh, Ernie Els, Adam Scott and British Open champion Padraig Harrington are among those who plan to play them all.
But those who play poorly might not be around very long.
The field at The Barclays will be cut to the top 120 players for the Deutsche Bank Championship. The top 70 will get into the BMW Championship in Chicago, with the top 30 advancing to the Tour Championship.
Each tournament has a separate purse of $7 million, just like always. So someone like Campbell could win the Deutsche Bank Championship the same week someone like Mickelson takes the lead in the FedEx Cup.
Along with confusion, there has been grumbling in the weeks leading up to the first-ever playoffs.
Some don't like the idea of being forced to play three straight weeks simply to qualify for the Tour Championship.
Scott Verplank is among those who for years measured a successful year on winning and finishing among the top 30 on the money list to get into the Tour Championship. Now he fears he might be worn out by the time he gets to East Lake.
“I know me better than anyone else, and my body is not going to hold up over four weeks,” said Verplank, who has been on tour for 20 years. “If I'm beat up and dead tired going to Atlanta, on a course where I feel I can win, what good is that? I'm probably stupid, but I'd rather win the Tour Championship than the FedEx Cup.”
Others question the payoff - deferred money into a retirement account instead of $10 million up front.
Woods was among those who felt the money should be paid out immediately, and this was one of the few times he didn't get his way. Others compared it to the World Series of Poker, when the winner can dive into a pile of cash he just won.
Some might not see this money for 30 years.
“If you have kids old enough to understand, they're more excited about the $10 million than we are because they're the ones who are going to end up getting it,” Toms said.
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