Time for the FedEx Cup to Prove Its Worth

The PGA Tour has engaged in a new adventure this year, the FedEx Cup points chase, a yearlong points race modeled after NASCAR's Nextel Cup and other sports' playoff seasons.

The goals were several, but straightforward: shorten the season for the tour's top players, getting them into more of the same tournaments; create a playoff-feel to the last four tournaments of the FedEx season; keep the biggest stars - Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson - playing at a time of year when in the past they've already packed it in; and maintain fan interest in golf at a time when in years past golf has tanked in the TV ratings and in space devoted to the game in newspapers and magazines.

A pretty big plan. So how's it working out? Well, we'll start getting answers to that question this week at The Barclays, the first of the FedEx Cup "playoff" tournaments. Here's the playoff schedule, and the weekly cuts:

• Aug. 23-26: The Barclays (144 golfers in the field)
• Aug. 31-Sept. 3: Deutsche Bank Championship (120 golfers in the field)
• Sept. 6-9: BMW Championship (70 golfers in the field)
• Sept. 13-16: Tour Championship (30 golfers in the field)

Back in January, when the FedEx Cup was announced, I wrote this:

Even if they do show up for all four (playoff tournaments), Woods, Mickelson and the other top stars aren't guaranteed to win anything. This is golf, after all. And if Tiger and Phil aren't in the hunt on Sunday, then the TV ratings will be relatively poor, no matter what kind of points title is at stake.

The FedEx Cup will generate interest, perhaps a little more than golf is normally getting in late August and early September. It's a plan worth trying by the PGA Tour. But for me, I don't expect it to create the magic for which the PGA Tour is hoping.

Now we know that Tiger Woods is skipping The Barclays, but I think my larger point holds true. Woods and Mickelson, or some combination of other big stars, will have to be in the hunt to generate excitement; it won't be the points chase itself that creates interest.

But we need to keep two things in mind: This is Year One of this experiment; the FedEx Cup is a baby, and over time it might turn into something more like the Nextel Cup. It might become a point series that generates excitement on its own. But even if that doesn't happen (point two), it is already a modest success just by virtue of getting Mickelson to play four times in a row after the PGA Championship, and getting Woods to play the next three in a row. That never happened in years past, when both playing sparingly after the PGA.