The PGA Tour is "putting the final touches" on a revamped FedExCup Playoffs structure that would "award a cash bonus to the leading player from the regular season, followed by a new scoring format" for the Tour Championship to decide the FedExCup champion, according to sources cited by Doug Ferguson of the AP. Sources said that FedExCup points "will not be involved in the final playoff event" at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, and instead the No. 1 player "would start the Tour Championship at 10-under par, with scores to par staggered depending on the 30 players’ position in the standings." The winner will be the FedExCup champion, and the bonus is "expected to be more" than the current $10M prize. That means "whoever gets the 30th spot" at the Tour Championship "would have four rounds to make up as many as 10 shots." The change "eliminates the awkward moment -- and divided attention -- of one player winning the Tour Championship" and another winning the FedExCup, which "happened last year for the second time." But one item "unsolved is when the regular season would end." Since the FedExCup began in '07, the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro has "been the final regular season tournament." What emerged from a Player Advisory Council meeting last week was the "possibility of ending the regular season the previous week" at the new WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis. But a source said that ending the season in Greensboro is the "more likely scenario" (AP, 8/27).
CALLED SHOT: CBS' Jim Nantz in a special to GOLF DIGEST last week suggested the Tour "handicap the players by strokes so that the frontrunner going into the last event has the lead at the start of the tournament, and the player in 30th position starts a predetermined number of shots back." Nantz also suggested possibly having the "top-five finishers from the Tour Championship advance to a two- or three-hole shootout later that afternoon, the winner landing" the $10M prize. There is "room to adjust" the FedExCup Playoffs to "make them even more coherent, suspenseful and dramatic" (GOLFDIGEST.com, 8/22).
