Post your suggestions to improve the Fedex Playoffs

ArcticKnight · #1 09-05-2007, 01:18 AM

Here are my two to start.

1. Firestone (poster) noted that only two players climbed into the 120 in the 1st tourney, and only 2 climbed into the top 70 in the 2nd tourney. That is way two restrictive. This should be loosened up a bit (so that maybe 5 can typically advance in each tourney). I mean no matter where Rich Beem originally ranked, he shouldn't need to take 2nd place to advance to the top 70. That's silly. However, they still need to make the regular season meaningful.

2. Because the regular season carries so much weight in the playoffs, you don't want players like Tiger and Phil skipping events. While you can't really dock them points IMO, why not give all players who show up 2000 points per event (or some carefully calculated number of points). It basically changes nothing except for dropping guys in the rankings who skip events. So, if you don't show up, maybe you lost 15 or 20 places before the tourney even starts???

3. Stop calling it a playoff.

SubGreen · #2 09-05-2007, 01:27 AM

The regular season should matter more. Tiger had an enormous lead going into the "playoffs" then they reseeded and his lead was cut to 1,000 pts. I think they should keep their points going into the last events, but make them worth more pts. (like 15-20k for 1st).

second thought, might be boring... I'll stick with OP's #3

roy_miami · #3 09-05-2007, 01:33 AM

1. I think they should drastically cut the prize money for regular season events and carry it over to the playoffs.

2. Start the playoffs 2 weeks earlier so they don't overlap the opening week of the NFL season.

Shoot59 · #4 09-05-2007, 08:44 AM

Get rid of it.

Golf already has the 4 majors + Players + Ryder Cup/Pres Cup + WGC Events + 4-6 other top tier events. That's a lot of quality events throughout the year.

Now it is fall, NFL is starting, MLB is getting interesting, NCAA football etc... Let the guys that are trying to make top 125 play it out while the big guns take a break if they want (to go play overseas for appearance $$)

They have created the biggest prize fund ever this year, and the best in the world are skipping tournaments. Not a great start.

JTrout · #5 09-05-2007, 09:30 AM

Ask the top ten players in the world how it should be done, and then do it that way.

FireStorm · #6 09-05-2007, 10:34 AM

I'll stick with my line of thinking towards #1. There is too much in terms of jockeying for position amongst the top spots each week, while little exists in chances of the bottom guys moving up.

RacersEdge · #7 09-05-2007, 11:20 AM

Just to reiterate - Tiger is already having his dominant regular season results severely reduced by the initial re-seeding. So that's already a bone thrown to the lower tier players. I don't think they need more advantage by getting a lot of points if they have a couple hot weeks - unless they actually win the tournaments.

Troll_Inc · #8 09-05-2007, 01:04 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Ask the top ten players in the world how it should be done, and then do it that way.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is probably the best.

Really though it only is going to be interesting if there is good golf by two or more players at the same time at the top of the leaderboard, and that's impossible to predict, regardless of tournament or format.

FireStorm · #9 09-05-2007, 01:21 PM

Simply keep the points format used for the regular season, and keep it in use for the whole season. Apply some of the eliminations part when it comes to the last 4-5 tournaments (Barclays, take the top 140 or whatever from the regular season, after that, top 120 for the next, top 75, etc etc down to the Tour Championship). This way, the season-long best player would be rewarded.

WLVRYN · #10 09-05-2007, 04:26 PM

If the PGA tour just wants to reward the season long best player, they wouldnt need a playoff, they could just pay out the $10M to the player of the year.

Think about every other major sport (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) except for NASCAR (since I dont know how the Chase works). Those teams play all season for postseason seeding, but they still need to win in the postseason to win the championship. You could be the best team in the league in the regular season and flame out in the playoffs and go home with nothing, or you could have a team like the Steelers a few years ago that gets hot at the right time and wins it all.

The PGA tour tried to create a hybrid playoff/regular season system that rewarded both regular season play and playoff play, hoping that Tiger would build a big enough lead during the regular season and maybe win one event during the playoffs and walk away with the title. By design, they ended up in the situation where they're at, in which the big names can skip a week and still win it all and people are bitching.

No matter how they structure it, some people will hate it. You can either have a true playoff and risk not having Tiger in it if he has a bad week, or have a sort of playoff and allow the guys to skip but still have a chance to win.

I'd prefer to have a two payout system. One is the POY, who gets $5M based on season long performance. Top guys can opt of the playoffs, but still will be playing for money in the season long championship. You also make the points for the playoff events higher to entice the top guys to play at the end, but maybe allow them to take a week off as well. That way there's a balance for guys not wanting to play every week to still have something to play for.

The other is the winner of the playoffs, where the points generally only count for performance during the playoff period. This will force the top players to play every week in order to try to advance if they want to go for this. Sure this may mean that Steve Stricker or Scott Verplank or somebody not named Tiger wins the playoffs, but that's the chance you take by creating the playoffs in the first place.