A Season Long Competition-To Get To The Gravy Train-But That Performance Doesn’t Matter For the Finale
I may be looking at this latest variant of the Professional Golf Association (PGA) experiment of a season long competition culminating in a final event wrong, but what sense does it make that a player can dominate the entire season, end up with such a lead in the only thing that mattered all year-FEDEX Points-and yet-notwithstanding that said player has an insurmountable lead heading into the final-because even with a winner getting the “extraordinary” amount of 2000 points in contrast to the standard 500 or 750 for a Signature Event or major, nobody can catch Scottie Scheffler on the heels of his dominating performance this year that includes 5 championships: which is, however, moot because any of the 30 that wins will be the FEDEX Cup Champion.
Does that make any sense at all? I mean, does that dog hunt? Is this golf’s version of Rigged Creative Voting-aka, Ranked Choice Voting, which is a scheme that allows a person who would otherwise not win-win?
We know in other sports at the end of the season it doesn’t matter if your football team-for instance-ends up undefeated-they can still lose the Superbowl on one lucky play (I’m not bitter, it was a great run (that could have been 4 better.)) And it makes sense that just because you had a great season does not mean you get handed the title at the end. That’s the case for football, baseball, hockey, basketball.
The problem with that logic for golf is that it is not a team sport and the reason there is a season long competition is that while everyone has a chance to win, over the long run-much like statistics-the cream rises to the top and golf has always thrived on competition but strove to identify-like the Open (British)-the “Champion Golfer of the Year.” We spend the entire season touting the FEDEX Cup points as a measure of merit, worth, and accomplishment: a player’s veritable earned place in the game.
Throughout the season the points meant something in terms of the excitement that has somewhat replaced the agony and slow death of the old PGA Tour Qualifying School, replaced by the slow and torturous death of extruding out those who in the final analysis failed to make the cut to move forward to the top 70, the top 50 and finally the top 30.
There is excitement, drama and agony in the process. Gone is Steve Sand’s white board, tortuous on the fly analysis of who is going to survive the death march. Now it is done electronically-but then suddenly it is all thrown out for some reason and it’s a free-for-all: that just doesn’t make sense.
The only worse ill-thought-out scheme has already played out-besides in previous years-the LIV model and the fact that John Rahm won the LIV season long individual championship despite winning no individual LIV titles this year. While the demonstrably proven and certainly most deserving champion-Joacquin Nieman-won 5 championships (40%) but did not win the overall. Even Rahm acknowledged that the format was a bit sketchy, but that is the way it was structured.
Now I’m not a math major nor sports psychologist or even a statistics guy-although I can wield a slide rule to do photogrammetry with the best of them-which is not a desired or even a necessary skill anymore in the age of computers-unless there is an EMT strike that takes out all the electronics-which is when I will make my triumphant return-and I digress-but one would think that these billion dollar sports enterprises could come up with a better scheme.
I’m going to offer my solution up front-the bottom line up front-and that is to go back to the future (2020-2021) with the solution that prevailed a number of iterations ago where the PGA Tour simply acknowledged-recognizes-that there are two titles up for grabs-and that it is OK to do so.
It doesn’t diminish either champion in any way-and there is plenty of limelight (and money) to go around in crowning the one for winning the tournament-the FEDEX Cup Crowning Event-and then clearing the stage to honor-in this case-Scottie Scheffler as the FEDEX Cup Champion: and everybody walks away happy.
There will be a winner of the final tournament, season-ending championship on the PGA Tour. And there will also be a FEDEX Cup Champion by virtue of the fact that the season was based on competition for points and the golfer who accrued-won-the most points-regardless of who actually wins what is truly in actuality a season finale-is the FEDEX Cup Champion.
There-I fixed it!
Who does this format cater to, the field? There is a new PGA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Brian Rolapp who comes from the National Football League (NFL)-and one hopes he was not involved in some of the most disastrous marketing fails in major sports history with the celebration of the disastrous Black Liberation Revival Movement and its theme of the destruction of the nuclear black family in contrast to all the wonderful NFL charity work to help broken homes, the introduction of pole dancing and ghetto rappers Super Bowl halftime shows with the non-anthem, so-called Black national anthem highlighted, and music themes oriented against fellow thugs, the “cute” idea to have fake fans represented by stick figure faces in stadiums during COVID, exhibiting an allergy to allowing police and law enforcement sponsored themes, but allowing social justice warrior “cutesy sayings” on the back of player helmets-the list is long.
More to follow on him and why the PGA Tour is moving away from having a traditional sports commissioner.
In a recent introduction to the press conducted as part of the season-ending FEDEX Cup festivities, Rolapp talked through his impressions of his first 34 days and among other things he announced a new (another) Competition Committee that will be led by Tiger Woods-giving back to the game-and a number of players (6 total) along with some of golf’s investment and marketing giants (3.) The somewhat theme or guidance for this group is to do somewhat of a 360 degree look at the tour around his three driving themes that define the tour-as well as most modern-day sports enterprises in his view-consisting of Scarcity, Meritocracy, and Competitive Parity.
He talked about the 2026 season being somewhat set but drummed on the theme of significant future change. There is to be one additional Signature Event which necks down to the top 70 or so players on the PGA Tour-and has proven somewhat wildly unpopular with many on the tour as somewhat of an elitist kow tow designed to fend off the LIV golf pirates and therefore somewhat in conflict with the tour’s bumper sticker that “these guys are good” and anybody can win every week: you can’t win if you are not invited/playing.
Which was somewhat wonderful and a thousand points of light (yawn) but he pretty much pleaded the 5th or a mea culpa by playing the new guy card when asked about the LIV elephant in the room and was politely-though somewhat insistently-called to describe his thoughts on the fans desire to see the best players in the world compete with each other more frequently. He showed a little testiness, combativeness or ire-referring to it as the “LIV” question-when the point was pressed after his repeat of his relative newness but earnest desire to get up to speed on the issues.
The obvious point being that the LIV negotiations that have dragged on for several years with absolutely no momentum or progress to speak of-other than the departure of acknowledged nemesis thorn in the PGA’s side Greg Norman-would seem to be of far greater urgency-at least to the fans-than standing up some nebulous “Competition Committee,” which did not get guidance to address LIV or to “make this happen now.”
Which is all academic and wonderful. The 2025 PGA Tour consisted of some 46 official PGA Tour events, with 8 limited field Signature Events, 5 so-called Secondary Events running concurrently with Signature Events, and the three season ending FEDEX Cup “playoff” events capped by the season-ending championship in Atlanta at the home of Bobby Jones (Robert Trye “Bobby” Jones, Jr.)
The 2026 season will add a Signature Event and there was talk of potential changes, but it really is too early to tell while the season is ongoing. Rolapp did acknowledge in his comments that the NFL pretty much focuses on change management (my term) after the season ends and typically debuts changes in March as pre-season is in the winds. He did mention several times that he envisioned significant change and enumerated one of his tenets as “not being afraid to make changes to long-standing traditions.” He is not up to speed on ball changes/distance reduction schemes and ongoing “policy issues” and repeatedly returned to what he sees as job 1, which is doing what is best for the PGA tour in terms of policy and marketing. It is clear he is not a golfer and was brought in as a corporate play to the 1.5B investment fund influx of cash to the tour.
That is the main part of what we will see roll out this week and in the coming months on the PGA Tour. It is probably too late for the tour to avoid what would be a minor fan calamity if Scottie Scheffler is not the FEDEX Cup Champion after a dominating season where he has 5 wins consisting of two majors while maintaining his dominance in the number one spot in the world of golf. All that after a season that started with a hand injury that sidelined him during the early season tune-up period: it didn’t matter.
It would somewhat make a mockery of what has been hyped all season-the crowning of the FEDEX Champion-to have number 30 on the FEDEX list get hot this week and win it all. Or one of the top five get hurt and expose how the points don’t matter…
It will be a self-inflicted wound a la the LIV model. LIV probably looked like a fair system at the beginning of the LIV season, 40 points for a winner, 30 for first loser, 20 for second loser, etc. Nobody apparently ever did a modeling and simulation effort to see how poorly somebody could play and yet still win the whole enchilada. And poorly is relative here, somewhat tongue in cheek.
But if you are running a competition where one player dominates by winning over 10% of the events and the next closest guy-or the back-into-it by points guy has no championships, I would submit you should relook at the format! Reminiscent of the days when the PGA tour was being ravaged by charges of a “lack of distinction” and fans had difficulty telling players apart.
One thing that would be good for Tiger and crew to look at is the propensity for television coverage to only cover leading groups or tippy top fan favs. In the current choreographed scheme, it appears that “somebody-” that ubiquitous jackbutt busy screwing most things up-decided the fans only want to see the topflight, fan favorite players. So that kid who won the Amateur Tournament from East Saipan who likely has a following who would love to see some of his play-will be lucky to see him when he putts out on 18-the obligatory 3 minutes of recognition. There is much talk about growing the game, but this is how somebody like Jake Knappe or Ben Griffin seemingly comes out of nowhere-the Cinderella Kid-and suddenly wins a tournament or is in the hunt and we-fans-have never seen them before.
Maybe the PGA can look into this internet thing and run a sentiment index for fans to plug-in what/who they want to see as a tournament is playing out. If I develop a fancy for a favorite player, it would be nice to see them on a broadcast every once in a while, even if just a pulse test….There is only so much milling around the green, Aim Point pondering and oblique looks at the line of the putt viewers can stand. The time spent on the green is way out of proportion to the action fans would like to see from the tee and approaches. Oh-does anybody like the golfers in a small box while the never-ending advertisements for ED or that weight-loss miracle drug is dominating the screen-I can’t even tell what is going on watching my theater room screen which is ginormous.
LIV makes no pretense about their season long championship: it is a scam when somebody who wins 5 individual championships loses out to anybody else who has not won a single event and is evidence they did not think it through. Even the winner-Rahm-described it as “bitter-sweet:” well yea, but assuaged bigly with like 14M in cash. Is Rahm automatically the LIV player of the year: I don thin so…
It almost brings us back full circle to what begat some of the formats in the first place. It just seems patently unfair that-like in the early days of the 125 PGA tour players who qualified through tour school and then remained “exempt” by finishing in the top 125 on the money list-these better ways have not resulted in season ending championships that have been very exciting.
I’m not sure what was wrong with the “season-long FEDEX Cup,” where a golfer would win the season long event-this year it is Scottie Scheffler, while some other smuck-a-teli can win the last event-but if they don’t beat Scotty’s season point total-then ipso and facto-Scotty wins the FedEx Cup: Why doesn’t that still make sense?
Golf is not like other sports. There is nothing wrong with allowing a points scheme to play to its logical conclusion and produce a winner. If the FEDEX Cup final were totally rained out, who would be the FEDEX Champion? Well, it should come down to the season-long quest for points. The main reason for having a season-long competition for points is to determine the winner: yep, that’s why we did it! Would that make the final just another tournament? It depends on how you market it.
And that should be the criterion for the season, regardless of the results of the final tournament event.
Fixed it (you’re welcome!)
And-OBTW-if the golf industry devolves to where it is solely about the money and not the titles-particularly the majors and the Tournament Players Championship, the LIV model wins and we will not see the next generation of emerging players on the PGA Tour.
21 August 2025
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