"Despite all the number-crunching involved at the end, the FedExCup is not that hard to understand."

Doug Ferguson had me while making his FedExCup defense...until that sentence.

There were so many possibilities in the final hour that eight players were still in the running for the $10 million prize, six of them based on the shots they hit, two of them based on math.

Is it a farce that Simpson could finish 20th and still win the FedExCup? No more than when David Duval had to finish 24th at the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola in 1998 to win the PGA TOUR money title, or when Vijay Singh had to finish in a two-way tie for third in 2003 to win the money title.

The TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola never had much drama to begin with. Duval once referred to it as an All-Star game, and that's about what it was. Most years, Woods had already wrapped up the money title before East Lake.

Now we have a FedExCup, which delivers four tournaments of all the best players in the month after the PGA Championship, compared with the old days -- a calendar full of events that hardly any of the best played.

For golf fans, what's not to like about that?

What bothers me about this analysis, while well thought out and articulated, suggests that golf should just accept mediocrity. I come from the view that a sport rich in formats and possibilities has the makings of something fun to watch, but isn't quite fulfilling its promise.

What Happens In Vegas...Golf Clubs Get Decapitated!?

It's one thing to have your clubs wacked like Lee Janzen's Callaways were at McCarran Airport, but another to be the second tour player this year to have his bag essentially destroyed.

Brian Wacker with the gory details.

“I opened my airline bag and it smelled like something was burning,” Janzen said via cell phone. “When it came out on the belt I could see there was a hole in the bag and some foam sticking out. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh what happened to my bag?’”

Janzen, who flew Delta out of Orlando over the weekend to Monday qualify for this week’s Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, said he’s never seen anything like what happened in all his years of travel. He also said he thinks it occurred on the ground in Las Vegas and not in Orlando or with the Delta crew.

Janzen added that something similar happened to PGA TOUR rookie Ben Martin in Las Vegas earlier this season when all 14 of his clubs were “decapitated.”

“To do that to somebody’s baggage and to throw them on the carousel like nothing happened,” Janzen continued. “I would want my people to walk them out and start the process.”

Update on Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 01:18 PM by Geoff

**Greg Moore's images of the clubs are posted with the story now. Looks like they were dropped from space!

"In the era of slow play...Haas' money shot should be heralded as a triumph of instinct, preparation and under-analysis."

He might be using hyperbole to make a point (I know nothing about that), but Scott Michaux ranks Bill Haas' playoff shot as the greatest ever because of the appropriate amount of time he took to play it. Michaux clocks it at 55 seconds, but when you watch the YouTube version, it seems faster considering the circumstances.

In the era of slow play that seems to get slower and slower by the day (did anyone happen to notice the five-and-a-half-hour rounds that the women were taking to complete alternate-shot matches in the simultaneously contested Solheim Cup this weekend?), Haas' money shot should be heralded as a triumph of instinct, preparation and under-analysis.

Bill Haas Didn't Know He Won The FedExCup When He Won The FedExCup

It's hard to imagine that Bill Haas was unaware that he won the $10 million FedExCup. After all, have you seen the PGA Tour's electronic scoreboards? You can get FedExCup standings, but apparently in September when it matters, information was tough to come by! (Maybe not surprising since you may recall I've written about how tough it is to get scores in between the ads, player info and other stuff on the video boards.)

The final round highlights include Haas' brilliant playoff recovery shot from the 17th hole lake but do not capture the bizarre moment Haas talked about in his post round press conference.

Q. Could you clarify when you actually did find out that you had not only won the $1.44 but the 10 mill? And did you fall out of your chair?

BILL HAAS: Well, we went up and did some TV interviews up in the grandstands there on 18 and both trophies were there and there was no other player, (laughter), so I kind of assumed and I looked at my wife and she was there, and she nodded her head. So that was when I realized.

I saw Tim Finchem, I said, I didn't know I had won this, and he was like, congratulations, you won both. That's what he said, both are for you.

The scribblers in attendance weren't buying his claim.

Q. Two-part question: How is it possible that you didn't know you were playing for $10 million?

BILL HAAS: Well, I knew I was playing for it, but even winning it --

Q. No, that the playoff was for the -- when you teed off in the playoff, you did not know you were playing for the FedExCup title and the $10 million?

BILL HAAS: Uh-uh.

Q. How is that possible?

BILL HAAS: I didn't ask, and nobody told me and nobody --

LAURA HILL: Bill, come on now.

BILL HAAS: Well, I knew if I won, that was the only way I could win the FedExCup. If I finished second, I knew I couldn't win the FedExCup. So in theory I knew I was playing for it. I'm not going to sit there and say, well, it's not a million on the line here, there's $11 million, let's put some more pressure on it, because it's not worth it. It's not worth that stress. I was just trying to win that golf tournament. And actually even more than that, I was trying to hit good shots in the moment, and even though I did it some of the time, I still was trying to stay not thinking about what's going to happen if this doesn't come off. I was just trying to hit each shot, and now it just fell that way. It's awesome.

Q. The second question is if you did know you were playing for the $10 million in the playoff, would there have been more pressure?

BILL HAAS: I don't know, because like you said, I knew $11 million was on the line somehow, whether Luke Donald won it or Webb Simpson won it or I won it, it was there, so that was in my head. When I was putting for that 4-footer to win, it was just to win the TOUR Championship, knowing that was all I could do.

The highlights, including the shot on 17 and the final putt:

2011 "It's Death By Accountancy" Cup Open Comment Thread

That description of the FedExCup came from John Paul Newport Saturday, who in the same column declares the FedExCup a success.

While the permutation possibilities are endless and the leaderboard wide open, I think the real drama lies in how Steve Sands handles the whiteboard Sunday. Does he use multiple pens or, under the pressure of the permutations, does he crack and only stick to his trust royal blue dry-erase pen?

Your insights into the golf tournament are welcomes too.

Oh No! The Whiteboard Is Out And It's Only Friday!

I have to say, the new Steve Sands-helmed white board and graphics center might make a bad situation even worse. And it's only Friday of the Tour Championship. Click to enlarge at your peril:

Finchem Goes Into Hard Sell Mode On FedExCup; Slips In Rare Aviation Metaphor

You had to think all of these years flying on Air Tim I or II would have led to more aeronautical metaphors, but today's was the first I've come across in several years of agonizing through Tim Finchem press conference transcripts.

From East Lake and sandwiched in between some awards announcements:

About this year, I think it's been a kind of long, grueling year from the standpoint of workload. It's been a tremendously rewarding year from the standpoint of first watching so many good young players succeed and positioning the Tour for the next ten years. And as I said a couple weeks ago in Boston, we're delighted with our new television agreements. It really gives us a long runway.

Yes, it is indeed a long runway. You could take off, land and take off (again) in your Citation on this runway.

These next comments on parity were the primary takeaway remarks for wire stories in search of deep meaning from today's presser.

And then the other thing I'd say about the competition, and I don't know exactly how to articulate this, but clearly we've gone very quickly from a point in time when we were very much a sport that was -- had a dominant player to all the way to the other end of the spectrum, not part way, but all the way to the other end of the spectrum. We had a player on the Player Advisory Council on some issue we were talking about in New York saying we're at a point of total parity. Anybody out here can win any given time. And it occurred to me that that's true, and so far the fans seem to really like it, and it'll be interesting to see what develops in that regard going forward.

Key words: so far.

Our ratings are up this year as a result of that interest, and I think that interest triggered a lot of what was very positive in our television negotiations. On both fronts, television and the caliber of our competition, we're very, very pleased as we come to the end of the FedExCup.

That's because they hit rock bottom last year!

Alright, strap in, here comes the FedExCup pitch.

Then toward the end of the -- just before the Playoffs, we had a really good upsurge in the quality of the field at Wyndham with Harrington and Els and others playing, which is another indicative of how strongly players feel about the importance of the Playoffs in and of themselves and the FedExCup overall.

You know, if you go back in golf and look at any tournament, go back to Tom Morris, however far you want to go back, there is a graduation of stature of any event that rides with the extent to which players prioritize that event.

Whoa there. Did Old Tom Morris just get lumped into a FedExCup/quality of field discussion? Did he ever play the Wyndham to enhance his chances of making it to Cog Hill before the second reshuffle?

And then perhaps most importantly is measuring and recognizing the reaction of the fans to what the FedExCup is. We've had an increase in overall awareness every year, our attendance, our overall gross attendance has been up with one exception the last three years. We attribute the fact that our overall ratings are up this year to the fact that, especially in an era of parity, perhaps, fans are more interested in figuring out who these guys are, spending more time with the telecast and watching them proceed through the FedExCup competition. And so the number of minutes on average that our fans spend with the telecast this year was up nicely.

Or maybe it's just been hot and rainy outside?

Nice adjustment here by the transcript editors. Cume looks so much better than the old transcript spelling:

In addition, our overall cume viewership, 84 million Americans watched us more than ten weeks, 146 million Americans have watched us some. We continue to be on just an event to event basis second only to the NFL in terms of the total audience that's with us in a particular event up against any other sport on average. These are all trends that are really important to the health of our sponsorship, but they emanate from the interest that the fans have.

They just can't get enough of the algorithms?

He did leave a bit of an opening for a change to the end of the FedExCup, with the groundwork laid to blame television for a tweak to have the final days (or day) as a true playoff:

But I do think there's an argument for continuity and letting people settle in with what's happening. It's particularly -- it's a challenge for television to cover when you have two different competitions going on, particularly like last year here where you had a lot of different stories, and the first three weeks in the Playoffs you've got a lot of different stories with the cut line, and then you've got stories at the top. I think it's great television, and I think our partners are doing a really good job. It's a challenge, but I think they've really stepped up and really hit on it now, and I think it's captivating for our fans, and it's good.

Johnny: Cog Hill Complainers Deserved To Do Lousy!

Teddy Greenstein corralled Johnny Miller before he hopped in his Town Car for a few quotes about the Cog Hill criticism from players.

"Anybody who complains about this course," he said, "needs to have his head examined."

After leaving the booth Sunday, Miller told the Tribune: "The guys who complained were the ones who weren't hitting it good. They deserved to do lousy."

Except, the complaints were aired before the tournament started.

Anyway, Johnny's other reasoning? Emphasis on ball striking, de-emphasis on short game. I know, I know...you have to read the quotes to believe them:

"Almost every guy who finished at the top of the leaderboard was in the top five in greens hit and ball-striking," Miller said. "To me, that's the ultimate. That's pure golf, not a bunch of scrambling crap."
Miller likened Jones to a necktie that falls out of favor after a few years.

"Rees came into vogue, and everybody liked him at first," Miller said. "If there's any (valid) criticism, it's all these bunkers that look like a jigsaw puzzle and all these little fingers (in the green) that kill you. But if you hit a bad shot, you get penalized. So I think it's a good golf course."

Wait, so he likes that the course rewards shotmaking, but he doesn't like how it penalizes a bad shot? Then, might that impact the whole risk-reward equation?

"It's unfortunate the story became the criticism of the architect."

Ed Sherman thanks the Jemseks for a "good run" at Cog Hill, but says all signs point to Conway Farms hosting the 2013 Western Open/BMW Championship after Crooked Stick hosts in 2012.

Western Golf Assn. President John Kaczkowski says a decision hasn't been made and that Cog Hill remains in the mix after a nice conditioning comeback this year, but he wasn't so wild about the player, uh, input.

"We were disappointed by what the players said in terms of the architect," Mr. Kaczkowski said. "We spent a lot of time and money trying to promote this tournament. It's unfortunate the story became the criticism of the architect. It's something we wouldn't want to have happen going forward."

Webb Shank

While Justin Rose's remarkable 63 in chilly conditions was the story of the BMW Championship first round, anyone who watched part of the opening round telecast--that would be all ten of us--couldn't help but want to relive 65-shooter Webb Simpson's cold shank to the 18th hole.

However, unlike other sports, where such fun would be easy to find on YouTube or on official websites, only at PGATour.com would you go to read a story centered around the shank and find it accompanied by a video highlight of Simpson's spellbinding...birdie on No. 6. (Oh joy!)

Now, he made par. He did not leave a family without a father, he did not call the Commissioner a bad name and he didn't even damage BMW's precious white chalet. No, the FedExCup leader and hottest golfer on the planet cold-shanked a shot, made par and the PGA Tour treats it like he committed a fineable offense!

Now that's a shank.

Steve Elling talked to Simpson's luggage toter about how resilient his man is even in the face of a shot that would make most of us pack it in for the day.

This season, Simpson has had a trio of shanks, one apiece with the 6, 7 and 8 irons, and it obviously doesn't leave much of a hangover. After the shank on Thursday, he shot 33 on his second nine.

"I probaby shank one every other day on the range," he said, noting that his hips clear so quickly that sometimes the club lags behind at impact. "I don't get too panicked. It's a little embarrassing."

Forget the red face, it's been nothing but red numbers for the Raleigh, N.C., native, who is an astounding 52-under in his last 12 rounds. He's first in the FedEx Cup standings, which carries a $10 million bonus to be awarded next week in Atlanta.

Jemsek Wants To Talk To Phil About His "Hatchet" Job On Rees

Alex Miceli reports that Cog Hill head man and all-around nice guy Frank Jemsek would like to talk to Phil Mickelson about why he finds Rees Jones' butchery of otherwise very nice golf courses so awful.

"I would look forward to talking to him," Jemsek said. "I would guarantee I would listen. I really feel badly for his hatchet job on Rees, I don't think Rees deserves it. It would be a great chance to talk to someone I wouldn't get a chance to talk to (otherwise). "

Interestingly, it's not Phil's criticism that did the damage this week. It was commentary from the normally diplomatic Steve Stricker and Luke Donald's that did the most damage.

Bob Harig says the real issue with the criticism of Cog Hill's Reestoration is with the aftereffects.

The problem with such comments, of course, is that they are likely to scare away the paying public. One of the reasons a golf course or club is interested in hosting such events is to call attention to their layouts. It helps drive business, whether it be daily fee players or those who might purchase memberships.

It's a long-held truth that the average golfer very much enjoys the challenge of playing the same courses where the pros play. But do they want to shell out in excess of $150 when they read or hear comments such as this:

"I've got to believe for the average golfer, it is very difficult," said Stricker, who felt sorry for his pro-am partners on Wednesday. "They're playing from way up [tees], and they're just living in those bunkers. It's almost too severe in spots."

"Li has been too much for Jason Day, Matt Kuchar and Jacobson."

Craig Bestrom says the best entertainment during Wednesday's BMW pro-am came when the tour's finest attempted to play Grant Li, 16-year-old table tennis phenom from Acton, Mass. The best fight was put up by Fredrik Jacobson, seen here holding his own.