2019 FedExCup Playoff Changes

[Wally Fairway]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Yes.

Do you know if the OWGR (or whoever runs that) has stated how they will treat the tournament?
I would call it crazy to award winners points to a player who didn't shoot the lowest score for the event (excluding handicap), but then I think it is crazy that they award points for the Hero Challenge (and several other small things I don't agree with)

[turtleback]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Yes.

Well, that takes a terrible idea and makes it worse.

[Groucho Valentine]

I think the system should be revamped but not to what the article proposes. In any playoff even the most lowly team or player has at least some chance of winning it all.  The 30th player in that system more or less has no chance. Spotting up to 10 shots with 29 of the best players in the world in front of you? No way.  Im not sure what the odds are of the 30th player winning it all now stands, but it has to be better than giving the leader 10 shots from the get go. 

I was always a fan of the tour championship taking the top 36 and playing them off match play. Or playing 36 medal and taking the top18 for a weekend matchplay.  The TV networks or corporate sponsors would never go for it because of the risk of having a Tiger Woods or other star player bounced early, but IMO its the best way to do a golfing playoff. 

[iacas]

15 minutes ago, turtleback said:

Well, that takes a terrible idea and makes it worse.

Meh.

If you're in the Tour championship, you've already got your PGA Tour membership sewn up, and as it's already a 30-person field (max), the "win" is already kinda compromised.

4 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

I think the system should be revamped but not to what the article proposes.

It's not what is proposed, it's what is set to happen. They've decided.

[Wally Fairway]

BDC looking to validate the need for a 10 stroke handicap, dude is already 12 shots out of the lead about 1/2 way through the 2nd round.
He is quickly letting millions of $$$'s slip right out of his hands

[Zeph]

Who is BDC? I can't see him on the leaderboard.

[Wally Fairway]

How would anyone like these results (this is adjusted using the 2019 Handicaps)
Justin Rose wins the Tour Championship and the FedEx series

 

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by Wally Fairway

[rehmwa]

2 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

How would anyone like these results (this is adjusted using the 2019 Handicaps)
Justin Rose wins the Tour Championship and the FedEx series

 

no one really wins two things next year - it's just one.  call it whichever you like.  There is not tournament winner, just the Fedex.

if it's such a great idea, why don't they just do it also to some extent in the 2nd week too?

idiocy - it's like government policy - what's working sucks, so let's double down and do the same thing even MORE obtusely

 

 

seems like the simplist way to do this would have just been to combine the scores of all three tournaments (216 hole stroke play total) for the Fedex Cup win.  and keep the 3 individual tournments as individual wins during the process.  (other than getting into the playoffs, this doesn't give credit for season long performance, so maybe give the top players the option to hit lower ranked players across the shins with billy clubs at random times - the higher your rank entering the series, those more hits you get)

Edited September 24, 2018 by rehmwa

[iacas]

1 hour ago, rehmwa said:

no one really wins two things next year - it's just one.  call it whichever you like.  There is not tournament winner, just the Fedex.

There will still be a tournament winner.  It’s just gonna be the same guy that wins the FedExCup.

[Wally Fairway]

32 minutes ago, iacas said:

There will still be a tournament winner.  It’s just gonna be the same guy that wins the FedExCup.

I look at it the other way - the guy who wins in the 2nd smallest field event on the PGA tour (the Hero Challenge has the smallest field) is deemed to be the season champion of the FedEx Cup. Again no issues as they are paying for it.
But, IMO, the handicapping of the event to crown a season long series seems bass-ackwards to me.

It sets up scenario where you can call someone a tournament winner, get them invited to the Tournament of Champions having never had the lowest (gross, unhandicapped) score for any week in the season (and yes it could happen in the WGC Match Play, but that is match play).

Part of yesterdays excitement in watching the Tour Championship was seeing if Tiger was going to win the FedEx; as he was never really challenged for the event. If the top players have the best scores it will turn the tournament (and the FedEx series) into a snorefest with the potential runaway. I guess we'll have to wait to see how it plays out starting in 2019, and see how quickly it changes if the new format doesn't provide the anticipated results.
Then again if Tiger wins then the networks are happy, the advertisers are happy and therefore the Tour is happy.

Edited September 24, 2018 by Wally Fairway
typo correction

[rehmwa]

37 minutes ago, iacas said:

There will still be a tournament winner.  It’s just gonna be the same guy that wins the FedExCup.

"same guy" really doesn't make sense now.  The FedEx Cup winner is the tournament winner.  FedEx Cup is now just a tournement win.  it's just one thing.  It was two, now it's one.  call it what you like.

Edited September 24, 2018 by rehmwa

[iacas]

Wally, I think that’s pretty unlikely as the leaders will have won events.

And so what if it does happen? Those are the rules. It’s one event.  And it would be pretty weird if the FedExCup champion didn’t even have a tournament win. 

1 minute ago, rehmwa said:

it's just one thing.  It was two, now it's one.  call it what you like.

Still a tournament victory and winner.

[Wally Fairway]

33 minutes ago, iacas said:

Wally, I think that’s pretty unlikely as the leaders will have won events.

And so what if it does happen? Those are the rules. It’s one event.  And it would be pretty weird if the FedExCup champion didn’t even have a tournament win. 

Still a tournament victory and winner.

There were 8 players in the Tour Championship who hadn't won an event this year, maybe not as unlikely as many think.
Finau was No. 3 in FedEx standing going into the Tour Championship, without a victory this season.

If someone wins the Tour Championship because of the handicap, I for one will look at that as a "tainted" win. Much like I currently view the winner of the Hero Challenge. The Tour and FedEx can make up whatever rules they like, but I think this goes against how golf should be governed.

Kind of like my impression of your feeling towards the USGA and R&A allowing putting with the flagstick in. If they change the rules I'll do it, but it doesn't feel like the right thing to do. And it won't accomplish the goal they hope for, if it is speeding up play. Just wait until they

[Moxley]

On 9/19/2018 at 1:44 PM, iacas said:

Completely disagree.

We have the top players continuing to play golf - meaningful golf - past the last major of the year. I feel like people forget what it was like before - we wouldn't see the top players (sometimes they'd even skip the Tour championship) from August until January or March. Tiger would pop up in December or whatever for his event, and overseas in February… and that'd be about it.

The FedExCup has done a good thing for golf.

 

Yes, I believe it was what Ernie Els called 'Wheelbarrow time' 😃

 

[Moxley]

15 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

There were 8 players in the Tour Championship who hadn't won an event this year, maybe not as unlikely as many think.
Finau was No. 3 in FedEx standing going into the Tour Championship, without a victory this season.

If someone wins the Tour Championship because of the handicap, I for one will look at that as a "tainted" win. Much like I currently view the winner of the Hero Challenge. The Tour and FedEx can make up whatever rules they like, but I think this goes against how golf should be governed.

Kind of like my impression of your feeling towards the USGA and R&A allowing putting with the flagstick in. If they change the rules I'll do it, but it doesn't feel like the right thing to do. And it won't accomplish the goal they hope for, if it is speeding up play. Just wait until they

 

Finau was probably the only one of those 8 who could have realistically won without shooting the lowest score in either format. It's mathematically possible some of the others like Horschel & Smith could do it under the new system, but so unlikely it's almost negligible. 1 player in 30 with a reasonable (though not probable) chance of winning without winning is still very unlikely. 

In my view, it's not the format of the tour championship that would be the issue, but the excessive multiplier for playoff events, which allowed Finau & others to rise so high without winning.

I think that in theory, either systems are reasonable - it's the numbers that I think could do with some work. 

 

[Zeph]

I don't mind the idea of the last tournament having a potential different winner from the FEC, so I'm not super thrilled about the change. You do of course narrow it down with the playoffs, but you can still have a bad season and win the FEC with a few good weeks in the playoffs.

It's easier in team events where you can narrow it down with a cup-format in the playoffs, but in golf you got so many competitors that can participate.

Edited September 25, 2018 by Zeph

[turtleback]

On 9/21/2018 at 10:34 AM, iacas said:

Meh.

If you're in the Tour championship, you've already got your PGA Tour membership sewn up, and as it's already a 30-person field (max), the "win" is already kinda compromised.

Is there any precedent for the guy shooting the lowest score for the 4 rounds of the tournament NOT being the winner of the tournament?

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, turtleback said:

Is there any precedent for the guy shooting the lowest score for the 4 rounds of the tournament NOT being the winner of the tournament?

For this particular tournament? No.

But that's got nothing to do with the point I was making.

That point is that if you choose to care about who actually shoots the lowest score of the Tour Championship, then you don't get to care much after this year, because that's not the format. It's now a four-round "seeded" shootout simply to determine who wins the FedExCup, and just like seeding in match play, the higher ranked players are being given an advantage.

You'll know this going in, so you can't claim to be mislead, nor can any of the players.

I'm not saying I agree with it, but I don't really care about it enough to even consider whether I like it or not. I didn't find the current methods or iterations all that confusing, but the PGA Tour believes that many have, and they want to award a single winner on Sunday.