First things first, breaking news on Tuesday gave the sad news that young Will Zalatoris is out of the Tour Championship — courtesy of not one, but two herniated discs in his back.
That’s not good, herniated anything is not good. He’s also out of the President’s Cup as well. He was the No. 3 seed, slated to start at seven-under and if he had finished in third place, well that would have been worth $5 million in bonus money. Instead, Zalatoris will collect 30th place bonus money of $500,000. Hopefully Zalatoris can get back to full health to start the new season.
Second things second. Let’s take a look at the “real” scoreboard from last year’s Tour Championship at East Lake:
Jon Rahm (defacto co-champion) 14-under par: 67-66-67-69.
Kevin Na (defacto co-champion) 14-under par: 66-67-66-67.
Xander Schauffele (defacto third place, depends on who won the match-of-cards between Rahm and Na) 12-under par: 68-69-67-64.
Justin Thomas (defacto co-fourth place) 11-under par: 67-67-65-70.
Patrick Cantlay (defacto co-fourth place) 11-under par: 67-66-67-60.
So that being said, we all know it was Cantlay who eventually took “Low Net” thanks to the 10 shots he got for winning the BMW Championship.
Cantlay needed everyone of those 10 shots as he edged defacto co-champ Rahm by one shot — 21-under for Cantlay, 20-under for Rahm.
Which brings us to this week’s Tour Championship at East Lake where the world’s No. 1 — Scottie Scheffler — will get those 10 shots that proved the difference for Cantlay last year. This week, Cantlay only gets eight shots and last year, that wouldn’t have been enough for Patty Ice and surly Spaniard Jon Rahm would have been your FedEx champion had he won the “match of cards” with pesky, LIV-defector Kevin Na (does anyone miss Kevin?).
So let’s quickly review who starts where and truth of the matter is, you really need to be one of the top five, ah, make that four.
Scottie Scheffler: 10-under.
Patrick Cantlay: 8-under.
Will Zalatoris: 7-under. (Will’s out, won’t be replaced, no, Xander doesn’t get the seven shots).
Xander Schauffele: 6-under.
Sam Burns: 5-under.
Big loser last week was Cam Smith, who out of the clear blue sky developed a bum hip. He sat out the BMW and fell out of the top five. Cam only gets four shots — so does Rory McIlroy, Tony Finau, Sepp Straka and Sungjae Im.
Rahm, Scott Stallings, Justin Thomas, Cam Young and Matt Fitzpatrick all get three shots. Last year it was Na shooting an incredible 14-under par — but alas, the LIV defector only got two measly shots.
Again, we hate to be repetitive — but you REALLY NEED to be one of the top five (four) guys in order to have a shot at “Low Net” and at this club event, “Low Net” trumps “Low Gross” and it’s worth a cool $18 million bucks. As for the guys who start at even par — zero chance of winning. In fact, for the 16 years of the FedEx Cup playoffs, only two guys starting at even par (in the stagger start shots era), only two have played their way into the top 10.
Now that the Tour and every other sort of sport encourages the living daylights out of gambling on the outcome of the various Tour stops — you wonder who would be crazy enough to be on something where guys are actually getting shots.
As Rahm said once — Can you imagine a team getting seven points before the football is kicked off at the Super Bowl?
Yes, there are a lot of players who aren’t fans of this format — Rahm especially, even Cantlay, who was the supreme beneficiary last year.
But the Tour has to figure out something to put some sort of reward out there for playoff performance. This year, only two events preceded the Tour Championship. Although he missed the cut in Memphis, Scheffler played well enough last week to jump back to the top spot,
If you watched Scheffler at all last week, he missed a multitude of birdie putts inside 10 feet. You can bet he’ll put in some overtime with the flat-stick, knowing that he’s getting 10, yes 10 big fat shots!
Not sure what the answer is for this PGA Tour finale.
But anytime you put “Low Net” in front of “Low Gross” at any sort of tournament, well, it’s not how a lot of us us came to enjoy playing this game.
Television Broadcast Times:
Thursday-Friday:
The Golf Channel: 1 p.m.-6 p.m. (EDT)
Saturday:
The Golf Channel: noon-2:30 p.m. (EDT).
NBC: 2:30 p.m.-7 p.m.
Sunday:
The Golf Channel: noon-1:30 p.m. (EDT)
NBC: 1:30 p.m.-6 p.m. (EDT)
8 Comments
baxter cepeda
First; Funny to me is what complicates this playoff-finale for the pga tour is pga tour players —the “legacy” over money guys— cannot go to a proper playoff because of money.
They cry when a guy who won once like Zalatoris will go from about 5 mill to 500 thousand in his bonuses…all sad for him even thou he won’t even play the finale.
Again this obsession with regular season results kills the pga tour playoffs.
These guys collectively feel if a player wins 3 or 4 times early in the season they basically are entitled to the chip and all the bonus money in the world.
Why be a dumb? Over time everyone will make money but this system makes ga tour players seem too much about the money.
Maybe the pga tour playoffs should not be for big money. Save the big money for some straight up points system or pga tour player of the year.
Play the playoffs for peanuts. I think that’s what maybe will cause these pga tour boys to finally provide the playoff-finale product fans deserve.
It’s funny all these new ideas like Monday’s at the simulator when guys like Tiger and Rory can’t demand and create a proper playoff for the pga tour; a move which would significantly improve the pga tour product.
I would argue the pga tour would have greatly helped itself fend off LIv if it wasn’t going through these endlesss embarrassing iterations of bad ideas For the pga tour playoffs/finale.
If the sports world had been enjoying true golf playoffs the last 15 years between the best of the best in golf —-regardless of format— I don’t think the golf world would be in this position now. I really do. I think the pressure would have come from the sports world and not just the golf world if we had a great playoff.
These playoffs golfers barely even care about. Average sports fans could care less about this mess.
Second, the iceman was clinical in working his lead last year. If he needed more strokes he would have found them.
I miss Na and many others on the pga tour; but I don’t miss my boy Kevin Na and others too much because I watch them on LIv.
But yea Tom the all that net gross stuff should never be in a pro golf conversation; especially a super final. We definitely agree with almost everyone in golf except Monahans office and maybe Jaime
Diaz.
Tom Edrington
So Baxter, I’m sure by now you’ve read the sweeping changes the Tour announced on Wednesday, enough to make your head spin…..we’ll attempt to address them for Friday……but they didn’t happen overnight, these started taking shape even before LIV became a reality…..
baxter cepeda
Sure they didn’t.
They just waited to today to look like total LIv bite offs.
Cmon Tom.
I agree it’s all head spinning.
And again the biggest bite offs ever.
And it’s so true LIv is the best thing ever for all these players.
Pip doubling despite everyone hating it. Why not put that money into competition. The pga tour still has the issue of its biggest events still not paying as much as LIv events. Handle that first.
The simulator thing by Tiger and Rory is interesting. I’m not sure what I think of the chipping and putting on some indoor mat. But it will be a fun way to hopefully watch Tiger more. But I’d like to see them mostly stick to the simulator if it’s a simulator league.
Tom Edrington
Simulator for drives only…..they will build a set for putting, sand shots…..sounds a lot like Tiger’s Pop-Stroke deal that is opening all over the country, one just opened near Sarasota, there will be one just north of me in a big development across the street from the Outlet Mall off of I-75. Monday Night Golf!!!
baxter cepeda
I always love those made for tv golf things. I think the pga tour has something to do with not seeing many of those.
Did U hear Tiger is starting a pop stroke championship and you can get in for 250$ Registration ?
It’s Going to be pretty close to you.
Tom Edrington
There’s a Pop Stroke that just opened in Sarasota and one right up the road from me, about 15 minutes away…..me and my buddies will be there….
baxter cepeda
Cool. Your gonna sign up for tigers tournament ?
Tom Edrington
The facility hasn’t opened yet. I’m still a decent putter — back in the day my greatest putting accomplishment was finishing runnerup in the club putting championship at Avila back in the mid-80s. I do remember I was defeated by and English chap named Trevor, who oversaw the Grand Cypress project in Orlando which was developed by funds from the Dutch Pension Plan. Not sure I’m good enough to compete — but we’ll see.