The Cheesy Cup

Phil isn’t going to play in the BMW Championship, the tournament in Chicago next week that’s the next event of the FedEx Cup - the PGA’s emulation of NASCAR’s Chase for the Nextel Cup, in turn NASCAR’s emulation of ball sport’s playoffs. The NASCAR thing hasn’t been much of a success – TV ratings and attendance continue to drop – but the PGA is about to establish a whole new level for cheesy gimmicks that don’t work. First Tiger bows out on the Barlcays, then K.J. Choi, and now Phi Mickelson. The points system is rigged so that it’s almost impossible to eliminate a “big draw,” so the Tiger was back this week, and still in the top five of seventy who will advance. The same for K.J., he’ll easily advance to Chicago even having missed the Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston. (The BMW, the Deutsche Bank, and I can’t name a single German golfer.)

So Phil, who leads the standings, has only to make the top thirty after the BMW Championship at Cog Hill in Chicago. He will be, of course, even having skipped to help get Sophia off to first grade. The win in Boston will fund back-to-school shopping for Sophia, big sister Amanda, and mom Amy. Evan isn’t quite ready for school, but the little guy’ll be along on that trip to the mall.

The point, of course, is that the top players don’t care a pin for this “playoff.” $10 million? Tiger was No. 2 on Forbes’ “Celebrity 100,” and banked $100 million on the year. Phil was No. 16, forty-two million. So it’s not the money that would attract those two. It has to be something important to them as competitors, like a World Series is, like the Super Bowl is. This is like the Pro Bowl. Meaningless. If it’s meaningless to the competitors, it’s meaningless to the fans. Golf has the Majors, and it has Tiger. The FedEx Cup adds nothing to the PGA Tour, the sport, or our entertainment.