[ Editor’s note: So he has been rather calm all summer. I think it must have been the heat. Dog days of summer and all that. But things are starting to cool off. And the FedEx Cup is starting to heat up. And so is Jigger. He has promised to stop barking at the coyotes at 3am if I let him ran….uh, post. And an uninterrupted night of sleep would be very nice, so….. ]
First off let me say I love FedEx. Well actually I love our FedEx driver. He makes a lot of stops here at The Household, and he always gives me ‘an Hersh a treat. And if no one is home he leaves the treats on the box on the porch. Real good guy that FedEx driver. BUT. The FedEx Cup is just silly.
A couple years ago some geniuses sat around a room trying to find a way to make golf more exciting. Which, okay, once the Major’s are over, interest kind of wanes. But, it’s golf, ya know? Drama maybe. Excitement not so much. Anyway, so these geniuses take a look at other sports, and decide what keeps people watching for a whole season, and what golf really needs, is…playoffs. Because if it works for everything else it will work for golf, right? Where they found those geniuses I don’t know. But I can take a guess at the general part of the country they were from. ‘Cuz you know what they modeled their playoff system on? Football? Noooo. Baseball? Noooo. Lacrosse even? Noooo. NASCAR. That’s right people. The geniuses in that room figured the way to keep up the interest in golf through the season was to emulate the points system of the only sport more boring to watch on TV than golf. Round and round they go. Left hand turn after left hand turn. Extremely nap inducing. And they say watching golf is just watching the grass grow. Don’t even have grass in NASCAR, just long stretches of plain black asphalt.
Anyway. So the geniuses decide that through the year every tour win is worth a certain number of points, each 2nd place finish is worth a few less points, 3rd place a few less, and so on. And the 144 players with the most points ‘get to’ be in the 4 remaining tournaments of the year, which are now ‘the play off’. So guess who has the most points this year. Tiger. How messed up is that? Guy with the most points hasn’t played since July. And he sure as heck won’t be in the play offs. So how’re things looking now geniuses? But it’s even more messed up than that. If you win, you know what you get? Nothing. Supposedly the winner gets 10 million dollars. But they don’t cut you a check, they put it in,.. are you ready for this?....tax deferred retirement accounts. I can just imagine how the conversation with the players went. ‘Hey guys, we have this great new idea. You play for points, for the opportunity to play in 4 tournaments you were going to play in anyway, and if you win it all you get money you won’t be able to touch for 30 years.’. I bet there was some stunned silence after that little announcement. Geniuses. Hunh.
And of course none of this works without a sponsor. I don’t know how a company smart enough to hire a driver who gives out treats could be dumb enough to be talked into sponsoring this mess, but some how those geniuses talked FedEx into it. I dunno. Maybe they got the CEO a round on Augusta National or something. In any case, the result of all this silliness is The FedEx Cup. And….
….wait…wait…..Is that a squirrel? A squirrel in MY yard? Gotta go. Promised not to bark at the coyotes ( damn sneaky things, those coyotes. Almost as bad as the cat. ) but squirrels are still fair game.
[Standard disclaimer: The opinions of this particular poster are his and his alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of the owner of this blog.]
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