With this yr's changes to the CME Group Tour Championship, there's been a few debate over whether or not the adjustments are correct or horrific. Here are my thoughts.
The biggest criticism is the decision by means of CME Group to genuinely permit the winner of the event win the CME Globe as nicely. Player #60, who barely made it in to the CME Group Tour Championship, has the identical danger of prevailing as Player #1 who, in this example, is ridiculously far in advance in factors.
Is it honest, the reasoning goes, to spend all 12 months combating for the top spots within the factors scores, best to have them rendered useless in the final occasion? In maximum playoff structures, the leaders get as a minimum a few benefit over the rest of the field. In the NFL, for instance, the leaders in every department (AFC and NFC) get a one-week bye, which essentially is an extra week off to rest and an automatic berth within the 2nd playoff round.
In fact, a few have hesitated to say the LPGA has playoffs at all! Instead, they simply have a very last occasion. Does the LPGA's system want some extra tweaking?
I suppose it does want a tweak... However now not nearly to the extent that most of its detractors think.
The problem I see is that, for all the playoff systems we have in sports, nobody really seems to understand how they work. And once you do understand them -- I'll explain my understanding here -- you realize that the LPGA isn't far from having it right.
First, let's address the elephant in the room: Most sports simply don't have as many contestants to rank. Most team sports top out around 32 teams or so, and most individual sports have fewer than a typical field in golf. NASCAR, the most frequently compared sport, typically has 40 cars in a field and has never had more than 60. Playoffs in most sports cut to 16 or fewer competitors.
Normal professional golfing fields usually have round one hundred thirty-a hundred and fifty players. Obviously the logistics are a chunk one of a kind!
Another fact rarely considered in discussions about golf playoffs is this: In most sports, the advantages gained by the top competitors are generally granted in the early stages of the playoffs, NOT in the final event itself. Looking back at the NFL, the bye weeks are granted in the first round only. The playoffs themselves are marked by cutting the field size.
The LPGA does have playoffs despite the fact that they are not currently known as that. Instead, they're called the Fall Asia Swing. These occasions are invitationals, open simplest to players who qualify thru the money listing. None of those occasions has extra than sixty two LPGA gamers and the sponsor invitees into those events do not get CME Globe factors.
At the quit of the Fall Asia Swing, the 60 gamers who qualify from the CME Globe factors listing make it to the CME Group Tour Championship. It need to be cited that the pinnacle gamers going into the Swing are pretty a great deal guaranteed a spot within the final event, which is without a doubt an advantage for remarkable play all season.
The final point is this: In the final event of a sports season -- be it the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Stanley Cup or whatever -- whoever wins that event wins it all. I realize that in most (if not all) of those events, there are only two competitors. But that's a function of much smaller fields to begin with; the typical LPGA field is four times larger than the entire NFL!
The CME Group Tour Championship SHOULD be a winner-take-all occasion. If a player made it through the Fall Asia Swing -- or controlled to compile enough factors earlier than the Swing to make the Top60 -- then they ought to win it all if they win the very last occasion.
What tweak do I think the LPGA needs to make? Simply enough, they should shrink the CME Group Tour Championship field. I would vote for a 36-player field; that's enough to make it interesting but still elite enough make it tough to qualify. Plus 36 players allows for twosomes or threesomes, depending on how the weather plays out.
Furthermore, in the event that they really need to ratchet up the tension, reduce to 18 gamers after rounds, with surprising dying for ties to get precisely 18. The reduce gamers could nonetheless get a payout based on how they completed, as a praise for making the event. But wouldn't that make for some frayed nerves?
The LPGA is truly close to having their very last occasion right -- possibly closer than any of the alternative golfing agencies. All they want is a smaller field for the final occasion.
And those are my thoughts. Make of them what you may.
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