PGA’s FedEx Cup playoffs not exactly turning heads

Are you ready for the FedEx Cup playoffs? Yeah, they sneaked up on us again. Even with Tiger Woods in the field and the Statue of Liberty dominating the spectacular backdrop less than 1,000 yards from Liberty National Golf Club, there doesn’t seem to be much excitement or anticipation as the third year of PGA Tour playoffs opened Thursday with the top 125 players on the season points list teeing it up at The Barclays in Jersey City, N.J. You are forgiven for yawning. How do you get jacked up about the start of the playoffs when the finishes have been so anticlimactic the first two years? In 2007, Woods won the FedEx Cup in a runaway despite skipping the first event, even after the regular-season points standings had been arbitrarily reset before the playoffs to shrink his huge lead. In 2008, Vijay Singh won the first two playoff events to build such a huge lead that he basically only needed to show up in the final two events to claim the trophy, turning the supposedly decisive Tour Championship into a meaningless money-grab. That’s not what the PGA Tour had in mind in 2007 when it instituted a season-long points race and playoff series of four late-summer tournaments culminating with the Tour Championship in Atlanta, where a $10 million bonus is presented to the FedEx Cup points champion. The tour wanted drama to build from week to week and a champion crowned at the end, like the NFL playoffs. Instead, the final event was irrelevant. As it turned out, Woods would have won the first Cup even if he hadn’t showed up for the Tour Championship. So tour officials tweaked the playoff format before the second year, further narrowing the gap between players when regular-season point totals were reset and awarding more points in the playoffs to enable players to move up in the standings faster if they continued to play well. That didn’t work, either, because Camilo Villegas won the final two and most important two FedEx playoff events — the BMW Championship and Tour Championship, when the fields were reduced to 70 players and then 30 — and still couldn’t pass Singh to claim the Cup. And so, for the third consecutive year, the playoff format and points system were changed. This year, playoff points are quintupled over the regular season (2,500 points for a first-place finish instead of 500), and the point totals won’t be reset until the Tour Championship. That guarantees that at least the top five players heading into the final playoff event could win the Cup by winning in Atlanta. On the surface, the latest changes seemed to make sense, until somebody pointed out that Woods (or anybody else) could win the first three playoff events and not be guaranteed of winning the Cup. Is that a good system? “It depends on who you talk to,” said Paul Goydos of Coto de Caza, who enters this year’s playoffs ranked 49th on the FedEx Cup points list, yet could move all the way up to No. 2 behind Woods if he wins The Barclays this weekend. “The New England Patriots were 17-0 (two years ago) and didn’t win the last game, so they didn’t win the title. This is kind of what the tour is trying to do. This is our version of the Super Bowl (tournament).” Will the third time be the charm — or are the FedEx playoffs destined to be a dud? “I think they’re getting closer to getting it right,” Goydos said from New Jersey after a practice round at Liberty National. “Let’s leave it alone and see how it plays out. I think they’re on the right track.” Stay tuned.