Will elite players compete in next year's playoffs?
The PGA Tour will receive a face-lift next season, as its 40-tournament schedule will culminate in a four-event playoff that will end in mid-September.
Those are the facts. But plenty of questions remain: Will the game's top players show up for these late-season events? Will the new format benefit a league that often gets neglected during the autumn months?
Our experts debate those questions and more in this week's edition of Fact or Fiction.
Bob Harig, contributor, ESPN.com: FACT. They all but have to the first year. Many of the big- name players campaigned for a shorter season. They got their wish but might not have realized how busy they'd be at the end of the year.
Ron Sirak, executive editor, Golf World: FICTION. The top players will play when the top players want to play. Tiger, Lefty, Ernie and Sergio still will base their seasons around the four major championships.
Jason Sobel, golf editor, ESPN.com: FACT. It's one thing to invoke the "independent contractor" speech for such events as the Mercedes Championships, but this playoff means a lot to the tour and the Tigers, Phils, Vijays and Ernies of the world will make sure they show up -- for the first year, at least.
Brian Wacker, associate editor, GolfDigest.com: FICTION. You can bet commissioner Tim Finchem will be putting pressure on them to play, but players such as Vijay Singh already have been quoted as saying they might play, they might not. As we saw this year perhaps more than any other, Phil Mickelson shuts it down after the PGA Championship. Tiger Woods? He's about chasing 18 career major championships, not something called the FedEx Cup.
Sobel: FACT. Seriously, would you choose postseason baseball or the Frys.com Open? NFL football or the Southern Farm Bureau Classic? The PGA Tour finally has figured out its place on the food chain and will exit stage left before the big boys come to play. Great move.
Sirak: FACT. How can it hurt? The further it can get away from football season the better.
Wacker: FACT The next person who can explain why it's a good thing the current PGA Tour season ends in November will be the first. With the NFL, college football and Major League Baseball playoffs dominating the sports scene, golf gets beyond lost at this point of the year. The season still will be too long, but ending it in September puts a higher premium on the product, even if one or two of the game's stars skip events in the FedEx portion of the schedule.
Harig: FACT. The last six weeks of the season, save for the Ryder Cup, have turned into a sleeper. Nobody watches on television and most of the top players are not interested. The tour had to do something and it will be a quick trip from the British Open in July to that season-ending Tour Championship less than two months later.
Sirak: PHIL MICKELSON. Oh, that's right, he's off until next year. TIGER WOODS. Oops, he's off until, well who knows when. ALEX RODRIGUEZ. No wait, he only comes through when it doesn't matter. JIM FURYK. He couldn't find a reason not to be here, so as highest-ranking player in the field, he wins.
Wacker: KEVIN NA. He won the Nationwide's Mark Christopher Charity Classic last week, shooting a 62 along the way, and is ready to put that little broken hand he suffered in a car door in January behind him.
Sobel: NICK WATNEY. Hey, it's Vegas: If you can't gamble big here, you can't do it anywhere! I picked Watney last week and the 36-hole leader almost made me look like a genius. Here's saying he hangs on for another 36 this time around.
Harig: JIM FURYK. He's won in Las Vegas three times already, and fell in a playoff last year. This would be a cap to a huge year.
