FedEx Cup starting to become more interesting

Say what you will about the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, but for the first time in its four-year existence it looks to have some real intrigue this year.

As a matter of fact, the way this season has shaped up it must be a dream come true for commissioner Tim Finchem and the Tour brass in Ponte Vedra Beach.

It has been, after all, a year of parity in golf.

Consider:

• Four different players won the major championships.

• Nobody has won more than two tournaments, with Hunter Mahan, Ernie Els, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker and Justin Rose each collecting two victories.

• Fourteen different players claimed their first career victories this season.

So when you add it all up, it means a couple of things.

1. For the first time in recent memory—and realistically in the Tiger Woods era—there is no clear-cut choice as the player of the year.

2. It is becoming increasingly likely that the player who wins the FedEx Cup will have that honour.

Having said that and with only three legs of the playoffs remaining, let’s take a look at who the most logical candidates to be the player of the year are taking into account their opportunity to win the FedEx Cup.

1. Matt Kuchar. It’s easy to look at Kuchar as a contender as he rides the momentum of his first victory of the season at the Barclays—the first playoff event—but he’s also been one of the most consistent performers all season. He’s made the cut in 19 of 22 starts—including all four majors, where he finished no worse than in a tie for twenty seventh at the Open Championship—and has 10 top-10 finishes. Add to that a Tour-leading stroke average of 69.44 and a FedEx Cup victory would all but clinch the POY award.

2. Dustin Johnson. If you can look past his meltdown in the final round of the US Open and his day at the beach on the 72nd hole of the PGA Championship, you’ll see what a fine year Johnson has had. He made the cut in all four majors and finished in the top 20 in three of them; Like Kuchar he has made a high percentage of cuts (17 of 20); He did win a tournament, making birdie on the 72 nd hole to win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am in February; And he’s been a consistent factor on the leaderboard with top-10s in half the tournaments he’s played in.

3. Mahan, Els, Furyk, Stricker, Rose, Phil Mickelson. It may be a large group of players to lump together (and an especially talented group it is) but when you assume that in order for any of these players to win the FedEx Cup they must win at least once more, it would be hard to deny them. Of these six players, only Mickelson wouldn’t have three wins (assuming he doesn’t win more than one of the final three playoff events) but a season long title combined with a major championship would be a pretty good season by anyone’s standards.

Some links to share

In the past week or so, I've come across quite a few exceptional pieces of writing. Here are a few of them.

Yahoo writer Michael Silver with a column on the return of Brett Favre.

Bruce Arthur of the National Post on the world hockey summit in Toronto.

I was very happy to see Steve Rushin return to Sports Illustrated and this is just one example why.

Dan Wetzel is the second of three Yahoo writers to be on this list and his take about what could happen to the Michigan/Ohio State football rivalry game is bang on.

Our final Yahoo piece comes from Jeff Passan and looks at how the Florida Marlins ownership duped Dade County politicians into putting up money for a new monolithic baseball specific stadium and what it will end up costing tax payers.

There would be few lists that could be complete without an offering from Joe Posnanski, who seems destined to prove that long form journalism will still have a place in the online world. If everything is written like his work, it certainly does.

And finally we have the recent blogging spat between Toronto Star columnists Damien Cox and Richard Griffin.

Cox started it with this, Griffin responded with this and then Cox seemed to really want the last word with this. Hasn't been much chatter since then.

PGA Championship fallout continues

Nearly a week later, the fallout from the end of the PGA Championship and the unfortunate result for Dustin Johnson continues to linger.

(I refuse to do as so many others have and label it bunker-gate. Why does every controversy in sports have to have gate attached to the end of it?)

This is especially interesting to me because many people I know can’t understand why I enjoy watching golf on TV.

Nothing happens.

It’s boring.

Watching paint dry would be more exciting.

I, of course, disagree with that line of thinking.

I love the skill, I love the creativity and I love the shot-making.

But perhaps most of all, I’ve always loved the fact that the players determined the outcome—not the opinions of educated, informed, well, bystanders also known as referees.

That is, until last week.

I will never begrudge the fact that Johnson shouldn’t have grounded his club in that bunker. Even he didn’t.

But I can’t conscionably place the blame squarely on his shoulders.

He does need to burden some of the blame, especially in light of how far right he hit his tee shot.

But there are others complicit in this misdeed.

You can blame David Price—the rules official that walked the final round with Johnson and Nick Watney—for not clearing the gallery from the bunker and thus making it clear that it was, indeed, a bunker.

You can blame the PGA of America for not treating all bunkers—even if there are 1200 of them—the same.

And you can blame Pete Dye—the architect—for feeling the need to try and mentally over-power players with bunkers that won’t often, if ever, come in to play.

On the plus side there seems to be significant evidence that Johnson has already moved past the disappointment.

Now if only I could follow his lead.

What we learned at the PGA Championship

1. Dustin Johnson is either cursed or is the owner of a major karmic credit. It will be the ruling that people will be talking about for years and there may be no more polarizing event in all of sports, let alone golf. After a two-stroke penalty for grounding his club in a bunker that looked like anything but cost Dustin Johnson a spot in a playoff to determine a winner of the PGA Championship, there will be those that believe Johnson was flat-out robbed. Others will say that it was the right ruling and the PGA rules officials upheld the integrity of the game, even if it was at the most inopportune time.

While that specific issue may be a matter of personal opinion and preference, one thing is without debate: Johnson handled himself with grace and class in defeat. It was certainly unfortunate to see it happen to a guy whose wounds over a previous major championship meltdown were barely healed. Johnson slept on a three-stroke 54-hole lead at the U.S. Open in June, only to shoot an 11-over par 82 and finish in a tie for eighth.

The good news is he bounced back from that to finish in a tie for fourteenth at The Open Championship in July and then, of course, found himself poised to claim victory this weekend. With his game—prodigious length of the tee, good, soft touch around the greens and a solid putter—it may not be long before he finds himself in the same position again.

2. Rory McIlroy may one day become the game’s top player, but right now he isn’t even the top player from Europe. Given his performance in the last two major championships (both third place ties), combined with his thrilling come-from-behind victory earlier this year at the Quail Hollow Championship, there’s been much chatter recently that Rory McIlroy—still just 21 years of age—is the heir apparent to Tiger Woods’ throne as golf’s top player. Even EA Sports put him on the cover of Tiger's game—the first time the cover has ever been shared.

But at this point, as sharp as his game may be, he probably isn’t even the best European player under 30 years of age. That mantle should belong to Martin Kaymer. In addition to claiming his first major title at the PGA Championship—and take nothing away from the German because of Johnson’s lack of playoff participation—Kaymer had top-10 finishes at the U.S. Open and Open Championships this season. He has five European Tour titles and has won at least two tournaments in each of the past three seasons. And of all the putts that were attempted in the pressure cooker that is a major championship on a Sunday, his par saving putt on he 72nd hole that ultimately put him in the playoff may have been the best.

3. Tiger Woods can still be a factor in 2010 and should be a member of the U.S. Ryder Cup team. It’s been a rough year for Tiger Woods. He said that in about as many words at his press conference after he shot a final round 77 on his way to a second-last place finish at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational last week. There’s a lot of negativity about his game right. For example: he sits in 108th place in the FedEx Cup Standings, while U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Corey Pavin is in front of Woods, despite playing in only eight tournaments to Woods’ nine. He has just two top-tens and has finished outside the top-25 five times this year—in the previous four seasons he finished outside the top-25 just four times. His scoring average of 71.48 is nearly three strokes higher than his average of 68.84 last year. And if you’ve watched him at all in recent weeks, you have a better idea of where his ball is going than he does when he hits driver off the tee.

Having said all that, he needs to be a part of the U.S. contingent that travels to Wales in the fall looking to defend their Ryder Cup. Consider: the idea that someone (Phil Mickelson or Lee Westwood) could overtake Woods as the number one player in the world has been a major storyline for nearly two months now. The problem is, it hasn’t happened yet. And as awful as his performance has been overall, he has managed to scrape out a pretty good record in the major championships. That is, if his name wasn’t Tiger Woods. Of his five best results this season, four have been in the majors and of all the players that made the cut in all four majors (there were only 12 of them) only Phil Mickelson has a better cumulative score.

It’s just 45 days until the Ryder Cup kicks off. That gives Woods more than six weeks to work on his game (whether it’s with Sean Foley as his new swing coach or not). Assuming Pavin will pick him for the team, it could be an important turning point for Woods in his career. America loves a redemption story and for Tiger Woods the chance to be a key part of a winning U.S. Ryder Cup team would be a Redeem Dream.

Woods and Federer bound together

Although they play vastly different sports, the careers of Tiger Woods and Roger Federer seem destined to be forever intertwined.

Outside of their arenas they’re good friends and have, of course, been the kings of their respective sports, being downright dominant for much of the decade.

But if you wind the calendar back one year to August 2009, you’ll start to see some evidence of their empire’s beginning to crumble.

At that time…

…Roger Federer was a month removed from winning Wimbledon for the sixth time—his fifteenth career Grand Slam title.

…Tiger Woods was in the midst of a season where he had already won four tournaments—including two in the month of August alone—after starting the year late while recovering from knee surgery.

And that’s when things began to unravel, even if the true extent wouldn’t be known for months.

First, Federer was knocked out of the Rogers Cup in Montreal in the quarter-finals.

Then Woods saw his record of 14-0 when leading going into the final round of a major championship blemished for the first time, as Y.E. Yang—and not Woods—won the PGA Championship.

In September, Federer rolled into the final of the U.S. Open only to be thwarted by Juan Martin Del Potro in five sets.

And, of course, in late November Woods crashed his escalade and effectively opened Pandora’s box, tarnishing his once unassailable image.

And while 2010 hasn’t been a total waste, it has been a struggle for both.

Sure, Federer began the year on the right note, thrashing Andy Murray in straight sets to win the first Grand Slam even of the season, the Australian Open.

But that’s been his only win thus far and he was knocked out in the quarter-final round at the next two Grand Slam tournaments, making it the first times he hadn’t reached at least the semi finals since 2004.

And outside of his performance in the majors—where he’s finished no worse than in a tie for twenty-third—Woods has been anything but the best player in the game, while his play at the WGC-Bridgestone Championship last week led many to ponder if his days as a championship competitor were over.

But as we approach the dog days of summer once again, despite all the negativity and doubts about their stature, both seem poised to redeem themselves in 2011.

Federer will play Andy Murray in the final of the Rogers Cup today after gutting his way through tight three-set thrillers against Novak Djokovic and Tomas Berdych and will enter the U.S. Open later this month as one of the prohibitive favourites.

Even though Tiger will fall short in a major for the eighth straight time (Woods has not found the winner’s circle in the last 10 major championship including the two he missed while injured) he has shown enough at Whistling Straits this weekend to suggest that with some off-season work (perhaps with a new swing coach, paging Sean Foley) he can once again be a consistent threat on the PGA Tour.

And ultimately, if they can reclaim their places as the most dominant players in the game, well, they’ll continue to be tied together in the history books as the greatest golfer and greatest tennis player of all time.