Well, if you watched the 2009 FedEx Cup and Tour Championship played at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta this weekend, you got a to see a really good tournament. Best of all for TV and the fans, especially those at the tournament, they got to see first hand the two best and most popular players in the game, Tiger and Phil, battle it out. Phil won the tournament, The Tour Championship, and Tiger won the FedEx Cup. It only seems fitting that since the FedEx Cup being a year long tournament that Tiger, having won 6 tournaments this year, is the winner of the year long FedEx Cup Championship.
It seems that the tweaking they did to fix last years' problem of the cup being decided before the last tournament — all Vijay Singh had to do was finish the Tour Championship standing up and the cup was his — ended the fact of no drama and tension coming down the stretch as we saw this year. What I liked was that the announcers gave plenty of recognition that this 4th event of 'The Playoffs for the FedEx Cup' was the Tour Championship. The Tour Championship is a long running and quite important tournament on the PGA Tour. It was good to see that its significance and history, as well as the first 3 tournaments in the finals, have not been lost in hype of the FedEx Cup Finals.
One disappointment that I heard mentioned a few times was that the PGA Tour was basically over with the conclusion of the playoffs. We know that there are still the 5 tournaments left to be played in 'The Fall Series.' For many of the PGA Tour players who will compete in them these tournaments are even more important than the FedEX Cup Playoffs. They will be fighting for every dollar of winnings to make the top 125 on the money list to keep their exemption on Tour for next year and avoid the dreaded and hated Q School. There will really be some nail-biting, sweating and heart pounding in the last event, 'The Children's Miracle Network Classic' at Disney World. We will see the announcers constantly updating who is inside the top 125 and who is outside, which will really add to the drama, especially if you are rooting for a favorite player on the bubble. There may even be some tears by some who finish above the 125 magic number, as sure as there will be hugs and cheers and tears of joy by the ones who finish 125 and lower.
Back to the FedEx Cup and the success of it as regards keeping golf interest high and in the limelight in the face of the college and NFL football seasons kicking off. Football fever is a tough thing to combat, even for deer and dove hunters. My thoughts about increasing the interest in the FedEx Cup would be to play the final four playoff tournaments and the Tour Championship at the very end after the Fall Series. Why? Because many football fans will be more interested in deer and dove hunting and GOLF when their favorite college and NFL teams are, sorry to say, out of the running for making the football playoffs. Just a thought.
But, for all of us 'True Blue Die Hard Golf Fans' who also like football, deer and dove hunting, bowling and hockey and soon basketball, we still have five great weeks of great golf to watch in the Fall Series. And after that there are the Australian Tournaments and then 'The Silly Season' events. And let us not forget that in two weeks we have 'The President's Cup,' where the US teams takes on the rest of the world minus European players. There is still plenty of good golf to watch this year, and before you know it, we're back to Hawaii for the start of the 2010 PGA Tour Season at the SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System) Championship.
The Surge!