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All things considered, the 2007 PGA Tour season has been mostly business as usual — Tiger Woods has dominated, dark horses have captured majors, and many young superstars and veteran grinders have won for the first time. But now comes something completely different. The FedEx Cup, designed to inject some excitement following the year’s final major, kicks off this week with The Barclays. The four-event playoff series will eliminate players outside a certain standing on the FedEx Cup points list after each tournament — with 144 competitors starting this week, only the top 120 will advance, then the top 70 and 30 in each of the weeks thereafter. Tour players accumulated points all year and now have been assigned seeds according to where they finished at the end of the regular season. But the point totals have been reassigned according to those seeds. Woods, the No. 1 seed, now has 100,000 points, while No. 144 Jeff Gove has 84,700 points. A FedEx Cup participant receives 9,000 points for a win in each of the first three playoff events and 10,300 points should he win the concluding Tour Championship. FedEx has designated a $35 million purse for the field in addition to the spoils handed out at individual events, but this $35 million is awarded into a tax-deferred retirement account. The golfer with the most points at the end of the Tour Championship wins a $10 million annuity. It will be interesting to see how the players respond to the new format. Woods, a Cypress native, is in the driver’s seat, though he will be skipping the Barclays and could skip another event if none of the front-runners apply pressure early on. San Diego stalwart Phil Mickelson, who stands fourth, could be one of those to challenge Woods. Or it could be Orange native Hunter Mahan, who has lived up to his massive potential this season and is seeded 15th. Southern Californians Pat Perez (39), Anthony Kim (42), Charley Hoffman (46), and Paul Goydos (53) are also capable of capitalizing on their solid seasons. |
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