This Week at WorldGolf.com: August 29, 2007

PGA Tour's FedEx Cup: Does pro golf really need to be like other sports?

Sitting on my desk right now is a special edition of Sports Illustrated from a few weeks ago, devoted entirely to the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup. The cover headline: Will it deliver?

That's seems to be the question everyone's asking right now, especially since the first tournament in the playoff series - The Barclays - is in the books.

But it's not the one I want answered.

People should be asking something more fundamental: Why all this effort to make golf like other professional sports?

That really is the reasoning behind this whole FedEx Cup campaign, anyway.

Baseball has its pennant race, football its road to the Superbowl. The NBA has a playoff that seems like a whole season in itself. College hoops has its March Madness.

Now, we're told, golf finally has its postseason, as if that was something the sport had sorely lacked.

And this seems to be part of something else roiling beneath golf's surface, a growing dissatisfaction with how golf stacks up against the other big time sports. I've read a lot this year from writers decrying golf's dress code. They complain that the game's greats don't show enough fire and emotion (where are the Michael Jordans leaping and fist-pumping at the top of the key after a buzzer-beater, they ask). They whine about golf galleries forced to be so staid (soccer players have to compete at a high level, even when all hell's breaking out in the stands, they point out).

Implied in all this, of course, is that we need to make golf more interesting to the general public. Why? The fact is that while it may be possible to grow the game's audience, the PGA Tour is only ever going to be able to do that within a restricted sphere: among golfers.

Golf, like other participatory sports - tennis comes to mind - generally attracts its fans because they play the game themselves on weekends and vacations pretty much up until the grave. That's where golf differs from, say, baseball. For most of us, Little League was our last brush with the bat and so baseball has had to find ways to latch on to the general consciousness: Hence, all this nonsense about "Our National Pastime."

Should the PGA work to make pro golf more interesting to golf fans? Of course. But that should be the target audience.

Golf fans really weren't looking for PGA playoffs.

As always, WorldGolf.com welcomes your comments.

Niagara Falls' golf, casino boom moves a travel favorite beyond the Maid of the Mist

Niagara Falls used to be all about honeymooners and kids, it carried all the sophistication of a trip to the Macon County Fair. Then the golf and the high-end casinos moved in. Now? Well, the kitschy souvenir shops and chain restaurants are still here. But so are casinos with towering fountains and $15 minimum tables, and golf courses with showy par 5s from celebrity golf course architects.

Blog: Don't miss Niagara-on-the-Lake Golf Club

High tech walking on the Saguaro at We-Ko-Pa Golf Club near Scottsdale

A high-end, walking golf course in the heart of the Arizona desert. Sound crazy? Welcome to the Saguaro Course at We-Ko-Pa Golf Club, where the high-tech hijinks of electronic pull carts do not take away from what is one of the most memorable rounds of golf in any Phoenix-Scottsdale golf vacation.

Also: Plan top flight, affordable AZ golf vacations

Column: Colorful Rory Sabbatini is the key to FedEx Cup's success

The PGA Tour's much vaunted FedEx Cup - the first of four playoff tournaments, The Barclays, having just concluded - needs a compelling champion like South Africa's Rory Sabbatini in order to survive, WorldGolf.com's Chris Baldwin writes from Westchester Country Club.

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