Post-major golf remains relevant
The major championships are complete for the year, which to some will mean the golf season is over, too. Not so fast. Before even getting a chance to catch our breath, we've got the playoffs coming up.
For those who are snickering, your chuckles are understandable.
The Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship have been considered the four biggest tournaments in the game for at least 50 years, and no season-ending corporate-sponsored playoff bonanza is ever going to change that.
But … and this is a big but … golf tournaments have never ceased being played after the year's final major, and if you are going to play them, you might as well try to attach some meaning to them.
The FedEx Cup playoffs have their detractors, and you can rattle off numerous flaws in the system.
But you have to remember what the PGA Tour was like after the major championships and before this FedEx Cup system was put in place.
It was basically a two-month run of tournaments nobody cared about, including many of the top players. They typically used that time to rest and gear up for the lucrative offseason events, while the tour's rank and file slugged it out hoping to earn their tour cards for the following year.
Several of the top names even skipped the season-ending Tour Championship, a boondoggle for the top 30 on the money list with no cut and a guaranteed payday.
Now, at least, the FedEx Cup brings nearly all the top players together for a four-week run of tournaments that crowns a season-long champion. It's never going to be as big as a major championship, but the fact that nearly every big name in the game will go from New York to Boston to Chicago to Atlanta over a five-week stretch suggests something must be right.
Charles Baus/Icon SMI
Adam Scott is among a handful of players trying to solidify their spot for the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Sure, the money is outrageous -- $7.5 million purses with $1.35 million to the winner each week, and a $10 million bonus to the overall winner -- but nothing short of money was going to bring all these guys together like this. So you can't criticize the money and then criticize the weak fields that would be gathering until November if nothing had changed.
How big is the FedEx Cup, which begins next week at the Barclays? It coaxed Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia into teeing it up this week at the Wyndham Championship. You can bet they'd rather be anywhere this week but Greensboro. Yet neither wanted to take any chances. Scott (111th) and Garcia (115th) are barely inside the FedEx Cup bubble that invites the top 125 to the Barclays.
And even if they make it to New York, in order to advance to Boston, they'll need to move into the top 100. So earning some points this week is a good idea.
Several players, including Wyndham defending champion Carl Pettersson (151) as well as Stuart Appleby (138), Ricky Barnes (141), Rocco Mediate (142) and David Duval (149), are in Greensboro this week hoping to move into the top 125.
Even U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover, who would be excused if he took the week off, is grinding in Greensboro. Glover is fifth in the FedEx Cup standings; if he manages to stay there through the BMW Championship, Glover would automatically win the FedEx Cup with a victory at the Tour Championship.
For the third straight year, the system has been tweaked, this time to avoid the disaster that occurred a year ago when Vijay Singh all but had the FedEx Cup clinched after winning the first two playoff events.
Now, that can't happen. The points players have earned through the regular season will not be reset until the Tour Championship. But instead of earning 500 points for a regular-season victory, players will earn 2,500 points for a win in a playoff event. That means anyone in the top 29 at the moment would be able to pass No. 1 Tiger Woods with a victory next week at the Barclays.
Waiting on Phil
Phil Mickelson said last week at the PGA Championship that his schedule beyond next week's Barclays is unclear, including the Presidents Cup, which will be played two weeks after the Tour Championship.
U.S. Presidents Cup captain Fred Couples understands.
Mickelson has played just four tournaments since disclosing in May that his wife, Amy, has breast cancer. Treatment has begun, and Mickelson played poorly at both the Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship.
"I did play a practice round Wednesday with Phil at the PGA, and to be honest he was excited to be out there,'' Couples said this week during a conference call. "He has not played much golf and that's probably the problem in what he's doing, but he knows where he needs to be. And in the Presidents Cup, certainly, there are more important things to do than worry about playing in October.
"But I believe in my heart he's going to play, so we want him there. We want Amy there. If he's listening to this, I don't think I'm saying anything wrong, I'm counting on him being there and I think he wants to be there.''
The U.S. and International teams finalized their top 10 players after the PGA Championship, and Couples and international captain Greg Norman will make their at-large selections Sept. 8.
Couples has strongly suggested he might take U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover and Hunter Mahan, who happened to be Jack Nicklaus' captain's picks in 2007. Both finished just outside the top 10. If Mickelson, who easily qualified on points, chooses not to play, then Couples will get to make another selection.
Norman, meanwhile, said he has a tough decision.
"I have to go down to No. 40 [on the points list] to try and find two guys that I really think are going to be supporting team members of my team,'' he said.
A look at this week's venue
This will be the 28th time Sedgefield Country Club will be the site for the tournament in Greensboro, N.C., now known as the Wyndham Championship. The event returned to Sedgefield last year for the first time since 1976, when Al Geiberger defeated Lee Trevino to win the tournament on the Donald Ross-designed course.
Ross designed the course in 1926, and the first Greater Greensboro Open was played in 1938 with Sedgefield and Starmount Forest CC used for the event. Sam Snead won the first of his record eight Greensboro tournaments.
Starting in 1977, the event moved to Forest Oak Country Club. Sedgefield had some remodeling done in 2007 to restore the course more to Ross' design, and the tournament moved back last year; it ranked 44th out of 54 on the PGA Tour in difficulty.
Two of the course's most difficult holes, the 14th and 18th, occur among the last five on the course.
Bob Harig covers golf for ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.
Birdies and bogeys
Birdies
1. Y.E. Yang. There are so many parts to the South Korean's story that make his victory at the PGA Championship so amazing: He didn't take up the game until he was 19; he had played in only eight major championships, and then he overcame Tiger Woods in the final round of a major when Woods had never coughed up a 54-hole lead.
2. Rory McIlroy. The 20-year-old from Northern Ireland completed a nice first full year of major championship play with a tie for third at the PGA. He made the cut in all four majors, including a tie for 10th at the U.S. Open and a tie for 20th at the Masters.
3. Golf's Olympic movement. It looks to be a rubber stamp for golf to be included in the 2016 Olympics after it was recommended -- along with rugby -- last week. Perhaps what is most amazing is how so many different competing golf governing bodies came together on this.
Bogeys
1. Tiger Woods. Any lead heading into the final round of a major had always been money for Woods, who led by two going into the last day at the PGA, then shot 75 and lost by three to a player, Y.E. Yang, that most still will have difficulty identifying.
2. Sergio Garcia. A double bogey on the final hole Friday cost Garcia a spot in the weekend at the PGA. A year after contending at the last major then nearly winning two FedEx Cup playoff events, Garcia finds himself struggling to make it in the playoffs this year.
3. The majors. For the first time since the Official World Golf Ranking was born in 1986, nobody ranked among the top 30 won one of the four major championships.
Will he or won't he?
When asked recently about playing in next week's Barclays in New York, Tiger Woods said simply: "We'll see.'' Not a yes or a no, but certainly not a ringing endorsement, either.
Two years ago, when the FedEx Cup playoffs came into existence, Woods received some grief for skipping the Barclays, the first of four straight weeks of playoff golf. He responded by finishing second at the Deutsche Bank and then winning the BMW Championship and Tour Championship to easily capture the FedEx Cup title.
Last year, Woods missed all of the playoffs while recuperating from knee surgery.
Now he leads the FedEx Cup standings again, and it's a toss-up as to whether he will play next week. Should he? He certainly doesn't have to. The PGA Tour has not made it mandatory, although his ability to win the entire FedEx Cup will be compromised if he does not play, simply because anyone in the top 29 of the current points list would pass him with a victory. Then again, that could happen anyway if Woods were to miss the cut.
Also making it easier is the fact that the four tournaments are not played in a row. There is a week off between the BMW and the Tour Championship, then another week off before the Tour Championship.
If you want to try to read too much into these things, Woods is playing in a charity event for friend Notah Begay on Monday in upstate New York. It would be a quick trip from there to the Barclays. Then again, it won't take that much longer to get back to Orlando, either.
Notables
• Just 80 points separates the players that are ranked 110th to 140th in the FedEx Cup points standings heading into the final week of the regular season. The top 125 qualify for the first playoff event next week at the Barclays. The 80-point difference equals a tie for ninth place this week.
• The only players missing in Greensboro from the 110th to 140th spots are Tom Watson (123rd) and Andres Romero (125th). Watson, who finished second at the British Open, has said he would not participate in the playoffs even if he were eligible.
• From the small consolation department: Tiger Woods went over $90 million in career PGA Tour earnings with his second-place finish at the PGA.
• Although there have been five first-time winners this year on the PGA Tour, no rookies have broken through, which has not happened since 1998 and only five times in the past 40 years.
• Y.E. Yang became the eighth multiple winner this year, having captured the Honda Classic and the PGA. That is the most since 2001, when nine players won two or more events.
• The Champions Tour has another major championship this week, the Jeld-Wen Tradition, its fourth of five this year. Greg Norman will be seeking his first Champions Tour victory of any kind.
• The United States will be an overwhelming favorite this week at the Solheim Cup, which will be played for the 11th time. The event is Friday-Sunday at Rich Harvest Farms in suburban Chicago. The U.S. holds a 7-3 advantage in the competition and has never lost at home.
Quotable
"I'm not prepared. This is the longest press conference I've ever had, the most questions I've ever got. But I guess I'll have to get used to it, right?''
-- Y.E. Yang, through an interpreter, after winning the PGA Championship on Sunday.
Catching up with last year's champ
Sweden's Carl Pettersson won his third PGA Tour event at the Wyndham Championship a year ago but has had little success. The North Carolina resident has not done better than a tie for 17th at the season-opening Mercedes Championship and has made just 10 cuts in 24 starts since. He finds himself 151st in the FedEx Cup standings, needing a good week just to advance to next week's Barclays.
Pettersson traces some of his struggles to a 30-pound weight loss in the offseason that may -- or may not -- have affected his swing. He believes now he may have dropped the weight too quickly.
Since then, he has worked on his game, put the weight back on, and has been trying to regain his form on the course. He'll need at least a tie for 10th to advance to the PGA Tour playoffs, but is secure for next season regardless due to his exemption for winning.
Wyndham Championship picks
Horse for the course. Tim Clark. A longtime supporter of the Greensboro event , the former N.C. State golfer tied for sixth last year.
Birdie buster. Lucas Glover. The U.S. Open champion is coming off a fifth-place finish at the PGA Championship and looking to solidify his position in the FedEx Cup standings, where he is fifth.
Super sleeper. Adam Scott. The Aussie's best finish this year after a second at the Sony Open is a tie for 33rd, when he lost in the first round of the Accenture Match Play. It's been a tough year for such a talented player.
Winner. Sergio Garcia. Maybe Garcia, a surprise entrant, will find his lacking form here.