Reset Mania

Earlier this month, the LPGA announced a new season-long competition, under the awkward rubric of The Race to the CME Globe (easy for you to say).  Now before we get to the inevitable trashing constructive criticism of it, let me note that it's a $1 million first prize (in addition to a $500,000 first prize in that week's tournament), big money for the ladies, and it's also tied in with the Wounded Warrior Project, an extremely worthy organization.

From the LPGA press release:

All tournaments will have the same point values in the Race to the CME Globe except for the five major championships, which will carry 25 percent more value.  The winner of all official LPGA events leading up to the CME Group Tour Championship will earn 500 points and the winner of each major championship will earn 625 points. Only LPGA Tour members are eligible to earn points in the Race.

For all LPGA events with a cut, points will be awarded to LPGA members who make the cut. For all events without a cut (except for the Lorena Ochoa Invitational Presented by Banamex), points will be awarded to members who finish among the top 40 and ties. And for the Lorena Ochoa Invitational Presented by Banamex, points will be awarded to members who finish in the top 20 and ties.

So, it's a season-long competition that will ensure a worthy champion....errrr, perhaps not:

Points will then be reset for the CME Group Tour Championship to ensure that the points race will be won at the season-ending tournament. Reset Points will give top yearly performers an advantage but not guarantee victory.

Here we go again, doubling down on the logical incoherence of the FedEx Cup, which Shackelford has appropriately dubbed the Reset Cup®. Let’s review how we got here, as a prelude to thinking about alternatives.  However, before diving in, I should acknowledge a couple of facts.  First, while I'm no fan of Commissioner Ratched Finchem, I must in fairness admit that he has a problem unique in the world of sports.  He runs the preeminent tour in one of the major sports, but he has no actual control over the 4.5 most important events in that sport (the fraction is the Ryder Cup, a biannual event). 

Second, to the extent Finchem has a boss it would be the players, and on his watch they have benefited from dramatically increased purses, so he's got that going for him.  The FedEx Cup has its failings, as I'll discuss below, but only after acknowledging that there's lots of commas in the checks the players are cashing.

The FedEx Cup was unveiled for the 2007 season (which was at that time, quaintly enough, a calendar season) and the planets were in alignment as Tiger won both the Tour Championship and the season-long points race.  Alas, Tiger denied Finchem his hoped-for photo, as the "unkissed trophy" remained unkissed (anyone but me remember that silly marketing campaign?).

However, things went awry in 2008, as with Tiger on the DL after his dramatic U.S. Open Championship, our old friend Vijay wrapped up the FedEx Cup before teeing off in the Tour Championship at East Lake.  So the only drama was whether Vijay could actually walk 72 holes over 4 days, not sufficient to draw television eyeballs during football season.

Thus began an annual tweaking process to ensure the following, per Finchem:

1. That the eventual FedEx Cup champion be a worthy recipient, based upon his full-year performance;
2. That the FedEx Cup champion not be decided until Sunday at East Lake.

I'm just a humble, unpaid blogger (at least until the page views reach a level where Google Ads kick in), but those two objectives aren't simply in conflict, they are damn near mutually exclusive. 

Phil and Tiger make nice, at least until the checks cleared.

Now the first tweak gave us the delightfully awkward 2009 awards ceremony, when Phil won the Tour Championship and Tiger the FedEx Cup, with frozen smiles the order of the day.  It's not often you see two world class athletes deliberately restricting their peripheral vision.

Since then it's devolved even further into parody, with the bright idea that the top five in reset FedEx Cup points should "control their own destiny" at the Tour Championship, i.e., if they win that week (and remember, it's only a 30 player field), they win the cool $10 million.  Why 5 and not 2 or all 30, I've no bloody idea.

This has resulted in a succession of underwhelming FedEx Cup champions, including Jim Furyk, Bill Haas, Brandt Snedeker and Henrik Stenson.  All admittedly nice players, but none of whom did much  more in that season (as an example, the Tour Championship was Haas' only win that year) than beat 29 other guys in the right week.  So Mr. Commissioner, how's that first objective above working out for you?  And, by the way, golf already has full season competitions, they're called the money list and Player of the Year award.

So, besides availing myself of every opportunity to tweak the humorless Finchem, why do I bring all this up?  Because, irony alert, the LPGA had a far better idea a few years ago, and abandoned it after one try.  In 2006, the LPGA converted the ADP Championship, their season ending event, into a big money (for them) shootout.  The event started with a decent sized field, and at the end of each round the field was cut in half.  By Sunday, the field was cut to 8 players, who played 18 holes for $1 million, to me an exciting concept.  Unfortunately, the event was won by Julieta Granada, an obscure 20 year-old from Paraguay, whose caddy was (and I think still is) her mother.  The big name players, most notably Annika, complained loudly about the injustice of the big payday going to a nobody, and the format was immediately scrapped. 

So, my inclination is to give on the first of Finchem's two irreconcilable objectives, and instead create a high-money shootout amongst the best players in the world.  If Tiger, Phil, et al played the last Sunday at East Lake (or, God forbid, they find a more interesting venue) for a winner-take-all $10 million, think anyone would watch?  I could see the logic of a season long points system to seed the best players into Friday or Saturday, but copy the ladies and cut the field in half each day, and you'd generate far greater buzz and boffo television ratings.