What questions remain to be answered as the streamlined FedEx Cup playoffs begin this week at Liberty National, barely a Henrik Stenson 3-wood from the Statue of Liberty?
Not many.
Let’s start with the player-of-the-year decision, which, like the Wyndham Rewards, seems wrapped up by Brooks Koepka before things get started this week at the Northern Trust.
It’s possible U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland could challenge Koepka if he ran the table in the three-event playoffs but that’s unlikely to happen considering Woodland is still basking in the glow of becoming a father to twins last week.
Ditto for Tiger Woods, whose Masters victory remains the season’s singular moment.
The last time Koepka showed up in the New York area he left with the PGA Championship trophy. At this point, there’s no reason to consider him anything less than the favorite to win again.
The more intriguing question may be how this new playoff format will play out as the PGA Tour bounces from Liberty National to the BMW Championship at muscular Medinah near Chicago and then to East Lake in Atlanta for the Tour Championship.
With one fewer tournament than in previous years, the playoffs cut from 125 players to 70 and, finally, down to the top 30 in Atlanta where the format gets funky.
Is the new Tour Championship format a good idea? It’s going to take at least one time through to say for sure but it’s obviously contrived, which often doesn’t work in golf.
In the final event, the scoring will be weighted to give the players at or near the top of the FedEx Cup standings an advantage. The points leader – it would be Koepka today – will start at 10-under par with the next player (currently Rory McIlroy) starting play at East Lake at 8-under par. It’s staggered downward from there.
Picking up two strokes over four days can be done. But consider the players ranked 26th to 30 that East Lake – they will start at even par, 10 behind the leader.
Put it another way: Should the standings stay the same, Woods would tee it up in Atlanta 10 strokes behind Koepka before the first shot is hit. Nobody can spot Koepka 10 strokes and win.
Is this a good idea?
It’s going to take at least one time through to say for sure but it’s obviously contrived, which often doesn’t work in golf.
It is intended to benefit the players who have played the best through the regular season and playoffs, but it’s also possible that the guy who shoots the lowest score for 72 holes at East Lake won’t win the tournament. That’s a hard concept to wrap your head around.
Is it better than the old way, which often produced two winners – the Tour Championship winner and the FedEx Cup champion – posing together? At least it will be easier to follow.
Remember last year Justin Rose won the FedEx Cup without winning a playoff event while Bryson DeChambeau won two but finished third in the FedEx Cup race?
This format is designed to change that, or at least make it more unlikely. It’s time to find out.
CHIP SHOTS
• It’s the subject that’s never far away – rolling back the golf ball or doing something to limit distance, particularly among the top players in the game.
The always thoughtful and provocative Brandel Chamblee believes there is significant action on the horizon.
“The R&A officials all but said they were going to roll the ball back at the Open Championship. I mean, they were on our set, and (Martin Slumbers) didn’t – those words didn’t come out of his mouth, but that’s what he was hinting at,” Chamblee said on a conference call with reporters earlier this week.
“So it sounds to me like the governing bodies are going to get together, and if you remember at Augusta National, the words were said by the chairman that we’re going to hold off and watch what the governing bodies do, but we don’t believe that the second shot at 13 is a momentous decision anymore, and I think they were all lining up to roll the ball back. Which I thought that they could offset the difficulty of the ball going so far with course setup and original architecture.
“I think architecture is a little bit in the mud, too much thinking about the way golf courses were designed 120 years ago, but that is slow to come, change in architecture and the change in setting up golf courses. So I think it can more quickly be fixed by rolling the ball back, which it sounds to me like it’s going to happen, and I’ve always said that I would like to see it addressed in a different way, but if they did roll the ball back, I think it’s good for golf.”
• The most surprising name to lose full status on the PGA Tour for next season?
Daniel Berger, but that comes with a caveat. He was fighting through a wrist injury last fall and never quite found the form he was chasing. If he receives a medical extension, Berger can play himself back where he belongs.
The other surprising name is Beau Hossler. He looked like a can’t-miss guy a year ago but nothing happened for him this season so he will need a good run in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals to improve his conditional status and reignite his career.
And if you’re wondering how tough it is to make the top 125, consider this:
Martin Trainer and Jim Herman both won PGA Tour events this year, thereby earning two-year tour exemptions, but neither made the top 125, and as a result did not qualify for the playoffs.
• Even after winning the Wyndham Championship, J.T. Poston may not be the most familiar name on the PGA Tour outside of his hometown of Hickory, N.C.
Still, Poston’s backstory underpins the idea of how valuable passing the game down from one generation to the next can be.
After his victory, Poston told a story of how his grandfather, Charles “Doc” Cunningham, cut down a 5-wood and took some weight out so that his 3-year-old grandson could accompany him to the practice tee.
The rest, as they say, is …
“I can remember as a kid following him to the range and taking that 5-wood and just hitting balls for hours and just loving every minute of it,” Poston said.
“Our relationship, a lot of it has revolved around golf. He was a big influence on me growing up as a kid even as far as how to act on a golf course when I was a kid, little things like that that I learned from him, just from watching him and how he carried himself when I was a kid.”
Pa-Doc, as Poston calls his grandfather, was behind the 18th green at Sedgefield Country Club on Sunday to see his grandson win. Cunningham is 85 years old now but still knows how to get it around a golf course.
“He shoots his age probably every time he tees it up. I think he stopped keeping track a couple years ago. … He used to keep track. I want to say the last time I asked him and he told me, it was in the 600s, the number of times he shot his age. And I think the first time he did it, I want to say he shot 64 or (65) when he was 66, so he can play.
“I remember growing up, he just hit it – similar game to myself, nothing flashy off the tee, but he kept it in front of him and his short game was unbelievable. That was kind of how I learned how to play golf was watching him at a competitive level, learning from him.”