Colin Anthony
26 August 2008
column
Johannesburg — THIS Fedex Cup thing and its truckloads of money is struggling to get me excited. I can't watch these end-of-year tournaments and think they've grown in stature in any way just because the winner gets, oh, R77m plus change -- bearing in mind that I don't have nearly enough of the stuff to be blasé about all that lolly.
Whereas people talk about upcoming Majors weeks before the event, I don't hear anyone even mentioning the Fedex Cup playoffs or getting excited about who will bag the big prize: $10m goes to the Fedex Cup champion, the largest single bonus payout in sports.
Briefly, players earn points during regular PGA tournaments and Fedex playoff events. The top 144 made the first playoff event, the Barclays Open at Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey played this past weekend. Then the top 120 qualify for the next playoff -- the Deutsche Bank Championship, and 70 players get to the third, the BMW Championship. Thereafter the best 30 qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship.
Perhaps golf has become a victim of its own success. When it becomes impossible to entice the top players to leave home for a first prize of $1m or more, why should fans get excited when they compete for $10m?
Introduced last year, its one advantage is that it attracts the top players, so that's a good thing. Because it's always nice to see them. Still, it says something about the sport that they've been battling to get the top golfers (read Tiger Woods) to compete in regular tour events.
And our Ernie has no qualms about so much money up for grabs. "How can I say it? At the end of the year you've got the wheelbarrow out," he said when asked about the prize money. He missed the cut at the Barclays, as did Retief Goosen.
Having said all that, if the brilliant duel between Sergio Garcia and Vijay Singh that was served up at the Barclays typifies what is to come in the final three Fedex tournaments, then something is working.
But it will remain a moot point whether such an exciting finish, between two of the game's greats, was due to the Fedex millions or whether it would have happened anyway.
Garcia arrived at the Barclays fresh from his playoff defeat to Padraig Harrington in the final Major of the year, the PGA Championship. That result was a repeat of last year's Open Championship when the Spaniard was a sore loser -- he blamed the weather, the course, anything he could pluck from the air. He was far more sportsmanlike after losing the PGA, but his bridesmaid's reputation is sitting heavily on him.
He and Singh started the final day all square at 7-under par, one behind pacesetter Kevin Streelman, and they completed the final round still level-pegging on 8-under, with Kevin Sutherland joining them in the playoff. Sutherland got into trouble on the first playoff hole, the par-four 18th, while Garcia and Singh faced birdie putts of more than 25 feet.
Garcia rolled his in and must have thought the tournament was his. But Singh showed why he is the only man to have dislodged Woods from the world No1 ranking and drained his putt as well. Garcia showed good spirits, swapping high fives with the Fijian. On the next playoff hole, the par five 17th, Garcia's smile soon disappeared as first, Singh's drive split the fairway and then he pulled his left. From the rough, he tried to draw a low shot around a tree, but it didn't draw.
In the opposite rough, his ball was directly behind another tree but because the gnarly ground around it was ruled abnormal, he was able to take a drop that allowed him to get a clear shot to the green. He advanced the ball to near the green and nearly holed his chip.
But Singh wasn't about to err: his second shot was true and he two-putted for birdie. The title was his and he is now atop the Fedex Cup standings.
Garcia, to his credit, was quite the gentleman, but the fiery Spaniard must be sick to death of losing in playoffs.
Anthony is editor of The Golfer, which appears in Business Day on Thursday.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
