Why you should care about the 2018 FedExCup, starting with Tiger Woods

The FedExCup is not the end-all be-all postseason that some would want you to believe it is. But this year’s edition has several people and themes to watch for over the next month.

The FedExCup Playoffs are a contrivance, but so are most things in golf. Some just take off more than others. The Masters was once a contrivance, a tournament created out of nothing that initially fell in favor with the press and eventually built itself into the most prestigious event in the sport.

The FedExCup is not going to become the next Masters. It’s a whipping boy for golf purists who opine it comes at the end of a season that’s already too long and full of constant updates on the nebulous FedExCup points system. It does have shortcomings and it comes after general golf fatigue has set in following a summer sprint through the majors. It can take on the air of a soulless money-bath. But here’s the counter to all the many and constant jabs at this postseason since it was founded in 2007: It’s better than what we had and probably what would be if it didn’t exist.

It gives us a reason to care about golf beyond the majors. That level of care varies and your level of care may be low. But it’s more than just a structure-less run of regular season PGA Tour events in August and September, which is what we had. There’s structure and a point to the schedule and a resolution of something, even if that something feels a little contrived. Here are 10 people, places, and things to watch during the next four weeks of postseason golf.

1. Tiger Woods is Back

It’s still hard for me to process that Tiger Woods is here playing the FedExCup Playoffs again. It’s not the hardest thing to qualify for, but it’s not a simple hill to climb. You need to be a competitive golfer over a PGA Tour season, or at least highly competitive for a portion of that season. Nick Faldo recently relayed a story of Tiger telling people at last year’s Masters champions dinner that he was “done.” Tiger himself was telling people this. So let’s set aside what we’ve witnessed at the last two major championships for a second.

Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

You would not have confided in even your closest and most judgement-free friend in January, as Tiger stood at the dawn of one more and likely final comeback, that you thought he would make the FedExCup Playoffs and defending Masters champion Sergio Garcia would not. It not only seemed improbable, but the idea would have been laughed at as pure fantasy. But here’s Tiger, not only in the top 125, but in the damn top 20 in the FEC standings. He’s not just in the Playoffs, but likely to make it to the fourth and final event, where only the top 30 get an invite.

Sean Martin of the PGA Tour ran some numbers on the ways different FEC points were accrued this season. Only eight players picked up more points per start than Tiger. Seven of the eight are in the top 10 in the world. All eight have won this year, and seven have won multiple times. Tiger has not won, but that he’s among this groups speaks to just how good he’s been and how consistently good he’s been over the course of the entire season.

I won’t stop you from mocking the endless FedExCup points updates all year, but these season-end marks are another indication of just how unexpectedly great this Tiger comeback year has been. He’s playing like a top 15 player in the world, whether the rankings say it or not, and that feels like a miracle given how low expectations were at the start of the season. That he’s here at all, and back, are reason enough to watch this edition of the Playoffs.

2. And Tiger can actually win

There was a time when Tiger could gain nothing from a FedExCup Playoffs event. I wrote back in 2013 that there was little to gain, and only more scrutiny to attract, from playing regular old PGA Tour events. That includes the playoffs. But 2013 was four back surgeries, chip yips, a DUI and treatment ago, among other things, and now winning an event, just any event, would cap the greatest golf comeback ever.

I don’t know if that means he should be playing every one of these events. If he plays all four events, that will mean he played seven of nine events going into a Ryder Cup that he’s also now a lock for at the end of September. That may be more than is necessary for a 42-year-old fused back at the end of a season. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to skip an event or two on the front end of these playoffs but that’s not how he’s operating in this “gift” of a year, as he’s kept calling it.

“This has been, as I’ve said before, this has been a blessing,” he said on Tuesday. “But man, it’s been so special to have this opportunity again. I’m certainly not taking it for granted, that’s for sure.”

So there’s more to play for and more to gain playing “non-major” events, and he’s playing well enough to actually win. He is not some ceremonial golfer with no shot who will be bounced after the first or second leg of the Playoffs. He’s going probably going to play all four and has a chance to win each one. It’s not just a “gift” for Tiger, but also a windfall for the Tour’s postseason.

3. Can Spieth salvage a lost summer?

Jordan Spieth doesn’t have gap years. He wins, and wins, and wins again, annually. He’s shown this throughout his still nascent career. ESPN’s Kevin Van Valkenburg went through the archives and concluded Spieth hasn’t gone a full year without winning since he was 14 years old. We’re now past the one-year mark of his Open title at Birkdale, and a month away from a totally winless season. A FedExCup Playoffs event win wouldn’t fully redeem a major-less summer, but it would have him feeling better about what’s been the toughest season of his career.

Or maybe not. Spieth could be the kind of competitor that lives by this classic and quite profound “Mambaism.” He may just want to get done with this season, “flush it” and move on to the next.

4. Does Rory give a s**t and should he?

I would argue Rory McIlroy redeemed one of those major-less summers by winning the whole damn 2016 FedExCup and the grand $10 million bonus payout, which he’d said, in a moment of honesty the year before, was an amount that “didn’t mean much to me anymore.” Rory took that 2016 FEC title into next week’s Ryder Cup and played his ass off, leading a young Euro squad.

Now we’re two more major-less summers later and Rory probably doesn’t care much about another FedExCup. He knows he is the kind of talent whose career is measured in majors, not FedExCups. The PGA Championship venue felt ripe for a Rory win, but he was never close as his peers poured in birdies all weekend while he nuked approach shots over greens. He walked away from Bellerive frustrated and saying he’d probably take a FedExCup breather to try and figure things out with his game. So he’s skipping The Northern Trust, the opening event.

I don’t think Rory has much to gain from playing every FEC event anymore. Rest up, figure it out, and try to catch a wave again heading into a Ryder Cup where Europe will rely on you once more. Like I noted with Sergio above, it’s still wild to think Rory is here at the end of the year 2018 needing a break to figure things out while Tiger plans to march through four straight events with his game in contending shape.

5. The U.S. Ryder Cup race

The powers that run the FedExCup may not love everyone looking beyond their events and forward to the Ryder Cup, but they should be thankful for the Ryder Cup, in my opinion. It gives added weight and interest to these playoff events, which can serve as a conference tournament type platform for the bubble boys trying to get to the big dance.

In the area of Ryder Cup roster speculation, we’ve seen how much things can change over the course of a FedExCup every other year. Last time around, few had Ryan Moore in the discussion for a roster spot after the PGA Championship, but he played his way into the last pick. Billy Horschel was the hottest player in the world and should have been on the 2014 team, but his FedExCup run came after Tom Watson took a text message from Webb Simpson and made his picks, per PGA deadlines.

The first eight spots are already settled. This year, captain Jim Furyk will make his first three picks after two FEC events, and the fourth and final pick after the third leg of the FEC Playoffs. It’s safe to assume Tiger and Phil Mickelson have two of the four spots. Matt Kuchar is speculated as taking a third pick, although it would be nice to have him play well these next two weeks. That leaves Bryson DeChambeau, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau, and Kevin Kisner fighting for what is perhaps just one spot. And that’s not to mention any mystery or overlooked candidate — Kyle Stanley anyone? — that could light it up over the next three weeks and leave Furyk no choice.

We saw it with Moore and we could see it again this year. This concurrent race definitely adds an element to the FedExCup that makes it more interesting.

Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images

6. What does Phil have to offer?

I’ve still got folks emailing me angrily for writing that Phil hasn’t contended in an event all summer. But it’s true. He’s not been a factor on a Sunday since he won the WGC Mexico in March. He’s stirred the pot and made plenty of news with rules violations and commercials, but his golf has been wanting.

Phil is going to be a captain’s pick for the Ryder Cup. In a vacuum, where he doesn’t have a a 25-year history in the event and serves as an authority figure in the team USA operation, he’d probably not get one based on his play this year. But he’s a lock and there is that history and context. It would sure be nice to alleviate some of the uncomfortableness of it with a win or some competitive starts before the first round of picks are due in two weeks.

7. The European Ryder Cup race

The European Tour runs and operates the Team Europe half of the Ryder Cup, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pick up points and make favorable impressions on the competitor tour in the States. There are two more weeks on the Euro Tour to accrue points for an auto-bid or make a statement to captain Thomas Bjorn. Henrik Stenson will play the FEC, but is taking a week off from the opening event. Stenson and Ian Poulter, who is also playing the FEC, are near certain captain’s picks if they don’t qualify. You can throw Sergio Garcia into that pile, too. So if Poulter does not secure that 8th and final auto-bid spot, there may be just one true open wild card up for grabs these last few weeks. Beyond Poulter and Stenson, a few Euro team bubble boys playing the FedExCup are Russell Knox and Rafa Cabrera-Bello. All four of the above names are worth watching with that RC roster race in mind.

8. Some actually interesting, different venues

The PGA Tour schedule is full of monotonous courses, but the FedExCup does present the opportunity to rotate to some different and interesting venues in major markets. This year, we’re getting two Golden Age designs. The NY-metro area event, The Northern Trust, goes to A.W. Tillinghast’s Ridgewood Country Club and the BMW Championship, typically held in the Chicago area, is bouncing over to Philadelphia’s Aronimink Golf Club, a Donald Ross design. Both have been recently restored by Gil Hanse, the go-to-guy for that kind of work these days.

Both may be set up soft and easy and these players will probably carve them up, but appreciate the deviation from the rote TPC test we get all too often.

9. Manufactured drama

NBC’s Steve Sands will be doing the touchscreen thing as a player’s status for the next week changes by the minute. It’s a thing that adds to the event. I’m not saying it makes the Playoffs worth watching on its own, but there’s a live-betting sort of manufactured drama element to this. There’s sudden flips and changes and shifts and, well, it’s something that doesn’t exist the other 11 months of the season, right?

10. Football

This is a thing you can watch on some Saturdays and Sundays during the FedExCup and you’d be excused for doing so. There’s nothing like the enthusiasm at the start of a football season, even for this Browns fan. You’re not expected to park yourself in front of the TV and watch golf all day. Drop in and out, or just flip over for the final few hours. I’ll allow it and maybe even encourage it.

Next year, the Playoffs move to August and will wrap up before football season begins. That may do little to alleviate the general golf fatigue that sets in at the end of a season, but at least it won’t get buried up against the start of football. Thanks PGA of America!