Tour Championship, round four: A memo to Tim Finchem

Tim, well done. Can’t say I was overly enthused by the way your new competition ended in a piranha-like feeding frenzy, but against what was achieved overall that’s a minor quibble.

You know Tim, you can be a bit of a mean mother at times, but maybe you have to be, given the plethora of different interests you have to juggle every week as PGA Tour Commissioner. You stuck to your guns, railroaded the FedEx Cup (two words PLEASE Tim) past a sceptical public - and not a few players into the bargain - and produced four weeks of mostly superlative golf at time when we would previously have been dozing in front of our TV sets.

Ignore those moaning miseryguts who still insist the whole exercise was a foolish failure. Their increasingly desperate bleating is losing touch with reality. But I hope you are not so mean and dogmatic that you aren’t going to listen and act upon the genuine criticisms that have been made. In that light, permit me to add my six penn’orth:

1 - Golfers aren’t cars and few people followed or cared too much about the points system during the season. Sure some of that was down to general ignorance about the competition and, in that light, it helped spread awareness. But that’s it - it was indeed a largely cosmetic device simply to get people’s attention. What distinguishes points from earnings in terms of ranking players? If you have to have points, use them to make qualification more fair. Award them maybe for a given number of events played each season - say the player’s 10 best results or 20. One thing that irks me is that ranking by accumulated earnings or points ignores how many tournaments these have been awarded in, rendering it an unfair and inaccurate guide to achievement.

2 - A small point, but ask players if they want to be included. Maybe you did have a word with Bernhard Langer, I don’t know, but it seems daft having him in the final lineup when he clearly had no intention of competing.

3 - I don’t know what the thinking was behind deferring the prizes, but it left me cold. It also occurs to me you didn’t make half enough publicity capital out of the huge sums for second and third place.

4 - If you must use points for the final four matches (playoffs? I don’t think so) start with a clean sheet. It was ludicrous adapting the seasonal tallies for the new competition except as a method of seeding the players. And find a way of ensuring greater reward for movement in competitions. But why bother with points anyway? For the top places you have the inducement of big prizes and, for the rest, why not just have the threat of elimination? It also does seem daft starting with the rough equivalent of the Tour membership. Start with a round 100 in week one, 75 the week after, 50 the week after that and 30 the final week.

5 - In that case you could also eliminate the confusion of players chasing two prizes in the final week. Turn the Tour Championship into the FedEx Cup Final (three words PLEASE Tim) instead. Heck, that would give you a chance to save some money and, dare I say it, might stand more chance of giving you your treasured fifth major than The Players.

6 - I disagree with Tiger Woods when he says players need time off to refresh themselves to play their best golf. This shouldn’t just be about textbook shot-making, but about physical and mental endurance over a four-week stretch - in other words about a real sporting contest. Sorry guys, but for this kind of money you should have to play your way through to victory and if you fall out you don’t skip back. I know this spells problems with the Ryder or Presidents Cup competitions so soon after, but that’s another debate.

7 - Either radically reshape and toughen East Lake or move on. I know this year was a freak because of the weather, but the course clearly is not up to snuff as a test of the world’s finest golfers. I’m not talking US Open grindathons, but at least something more than 18 dart boards. Saturday especially was plain embarrassing. And certainly get rid of that par 3 as the 18th hole. Where’s the excitement in that?

There’s probably some other things I’ve forgotten; I’ll let you know. But one other thing I’d like to say is that if it achieved nothing else the competition produced some thrilling early-round individual clashes by putting similarly seeded players in the same pairing. It was a great idea and you should do it more often.

Anyway, once again Tim, don’t get me wrong. I think the last weekend was a bit of a letdown, but otherwise these last four weeks have been superb and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise d’ye hear? Many thanks.

Anthony

PS: Tim, if you bump into Vijay Singh or Jim Furyk, tell them from me to buck their ideas up. Now there were two big FedEx Cup disappointments.