Let ME Tweak the Web.com Finals

The players are already tossing in their cents approximately what?S wrong and what?S right with the brand new Web.Com Finals. I?Ve determined to shop absolutely everyone quite a few trouble and simply restoration them myself!

And sure, there are definitely some troubles that want to be addressed earlier than next yr.

There?S one issue I think nearly every person consents on?Particularly, the 25 gamers who received Tour cards throughout the regular Web.Com Tour season must NOT be concerned inside the Finals. These are totally specific animals doing the job though totally unique processes, and that they have to stay separate entities.

Let “The 25” stand as is, with no opportunity to improve their seeding. After all, the Finals are supposed to determine the best players—who, based on the arguments for funneling everybody through the Web.com Tour in the first place, are clearly defined as the players who are the most consistently good from week to week. “The 25” was determined over months of tournaments… and now you want to change that seeding based on four weeks of play? Forget it.

That means the Finals will determine 25 Tour cards and their seedings over four weeks of play, totally apart from “The 25” who have already been determined. Instead, the seedings of the 25 Playoff cards will be intermixed with those of the 25 Web.com Tour season winners, just as they have in the past. The Finals will be contested between numbers 126-200 from the PGA Tour and numbers 26-75 from the Web.com Tour. (In fact, they could expand the Web.com players down to #100 if they wanted to get 150-man fields.)

But now we hit any other hassle. The new Playoff system treats these 4 tournaments as a mini-Web.Com Tour season? And that?S simply not in keeping with the ?Decide the great players? Idea. During the closing round of the Finals, Phil Blackmar suggested that people who have a problem with a player lacking three cuts then getting his card with an awesome finish within the final event should keep in mind that the Tour works the same way. The money there may be so pinnacle heavy that you may omit quite a few cuts and still secure your card in a unmarried event.

But I assume Phil is ignoring several distinct variations between the Web.Com Finals and the PGA Tour:

• Phil said the PGA Tour doesn’t reward “consistent mediocrity”—that is, players who just make cuts. However, at the very least, I don’t think you can say that a player who misses more cuts than he makes is one of the “best” players, do you? I’m pretty sure the Tour doesn’t. For comparison, Phil Mickelson is considered “inconsistent” but he made 18 cuts and missed 3 this season. Graeme McDowell had a stretch of domestic and foreign tournaments where he won 3 times and missed 5 cuts… and everybody (including Graeme) considered that unsatisfactory.
• I’ll concede that a PGA Tour player only needs one or two decent tournaments to keep his card… but consider the competition. If you’re in the Web.com Finals, will you be facing EVEN ONE competitor who’s the caliber of Tiger or Phil or Rory or Henrik or…? Then why should you get rewarded as if you did?
• In Q-School, players had to play well for at least 6 rounds to get a card… and that was considered an inadequate way to determine the best players because all a player had to do was “get hot” for one week. With the new system, a player can get a Top5 in the first event (a mere 4 rounds), skip the other 3, and probably get his Tour card. What’s the difference? This is unacceptable!

As you can see, I think Phil is missing the point. The goal isn’t to duplicate Tour competition; it’s to create a crucible that will identify the players capable of handling the pressures of the Tour. As it stands, the Web.com Finals don’t do that.

But I even have some thoughts?

First, if you want to measure consistency, you have to narrow the gaps in the money each finishing position gets. As it is, the winner gets $180k, the runner-up gets $108k, and so forth. These gaps at the top are far too large for a series of 4 tournaments! We need to rethink the entire money setup…

And, inside the process, make the entire collection greater interesting.

Currently, every event has a total purse of $1mil, so the whole series has a purse of $4mil.

Change #1: Take 20% of the total purse—$800k—and make it a prize pool awarded to the Top10 money finishers at the end of the Finals, to give them a little extra help getting started on Tour. Here’s my arbitrary division of the pool, although I’m sure Web.com could come up with something better:

1. $180k
2. $140k
3. $110k
4. $90k
5. $80k
6. $60k
7. $50k
8. $35k
9. $30k
10. $25k

That leaves an $800k purse for each tournament.

Change #2: I want the dollar amount for the winner lowered considerably, and I want the dollar difference between each finish position narrowed dramatically. That means that if you get a runner-up finish in the first tournament and you miss the next 3 cuts, you probably won’t get a Tour card. The whole idea for using the Web.com Finals as a “testing ground” in the first place is to prevent a player getting “hot” in the traditional Q-School and winning a spot on Tour he doesn’t really deserve.

Make positive you recognize what I?M announcing here. The cash gaps between the top finishers have to still be large than the cash gaps between the low finishers. What I?M saying is that the gaps at the top shouldn?T be as huge as they may be now, and honestly not as big relative to the gaps at the bottom.

Part of the idea at the back of the 4-match collection became to forestall one awful week from ruining a participant?S possibilities to get his card. I agree that one ignored reduce shouldn?T wreck your chances? But two overlooked cuts have to make it greater difficult to get your card. And if you leave out three cuts, perhaps you want every other yr at the Web.Com Tour earlier than you?Re prepared to play with the big boys. (Unless you win your fourth event. I?Ll get to that in a minute.)

Let me repeat myself: The whole reason for this change from Q-School to Web.com Finals is that the best players are defined as the players who are the most consistently good from week to week. Therefore we have to eliminate the massive rewards that let a “weak player” leapfrog several good players and open an uncloseable gap between them. To do that, we have to minimize the differences between how much each finish position pays so that one great finish doesn’t overcompensate for several bad ones.

And simply to ensure you recognize, I?M now not saying gamers shouldn?T be capable of lock up a card in much less than four occasions. If you make, say, a runner-up and a 3rd in of your events, I don?T have a hassle in case your card is quite nicely locked; if so, you?Ve played very well in 1/2 the events. I simply don?T need a single finish of third or fourth location to fasten up a card. As things currently stand, that?S what occurs.

But wouldn?T the sort of alternate suggest wins are devalued? If a win doesn?T pay that much more than a runner-up, does it even depend if you win or now not?

Oh, yes. Under my system, it matters greater than ever!

Change #3: No matter how much money a player has (or hasn’t) won, getting a win guarantees him a Top5 seeding. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg…

You see, I want to up the Playoff stakes. As it stands, the grand prize for the player with the most money is a “Golden Ticket,” better known as a fully-exempt Tour card and an invitation to play the TPC. But suppose—depending on how well the individual players played—there could be as many as THREE Golden Tickets?

Do I actually have your interest yet? Let me explain.

Based on what I?Ve informed you to this point, you may see that the Top5 seeded gamers at the cease of the Web.Com Finals will be the four tournament winners plus the non-winner with the most cash. The order of the winners? Seeds could be determined by using how tons money every had made, of course, but they is probably seeds 2-five if the top non-winner made extra money. (John Peterson took the top spot this time with out triumphing an event, so I?M no longer suggesting whatever groundbreaking right here.)

But suppose a single player won TWO of the tournaments? Shouldn’t that be worth more than simply money or a higher seed before the reshuffle? I think so. In fact, I think anybody playing well enough to win two of the four tournaments should get a Golden Ticket.

But what about the collection cash winner? What takes place to him?

Simple. In that case, there could be TWO Golden Tickets awarded?One to the double winner and the ?Ordinary? One to the player with the most cash who didn?T win two times.

And suppose there were TWO two-time winners? In that case, THREE Golden Tickets might be provided?One to every of the double winners plus the ?Everyday? Golden Ticket.

But—and this is the kicker for me—no one would know exactly how many Golden Tickets would be available until the end of the final tournament! (And just to be clear, if one player succeeded in winning either 3 or all 4 of the tournaments, two Golden Tickets would be awarded—one to the multiple winner and one to the “regular” winner.)

Tell me? Under my new guidelines, do you observed any participant is going to skip a match except they absolutely should? Do you think the stress that gamers feel is probably ratcheted up some notches? Imagine the amusing the announcers could have trying to project how many Golden Tickets might absolutely be awarded? And who might have the fine shot at them.

And first-class of all, the very last outcomes?And rewards?Are completely decided with the aid of the best of play!

So the use of my tweaks, the Web.Com Finals could see these modifications:

• only 25 Tour cards would be awarded and seeded; “The 25” wouldn’t play and their seedings would remain untouched
• only the four tournament winners could lock up their Tour cards with a single good finish; that’s a perk for winning
• it would take at least two decent finishes for other players to lock up a Tour card, thus eliminating most of the “freak finishes”
• by lessening the money differences between finishing spots, it would truly take all 4 tournaments—16 rounds—to determine which players are most deserving of Tour cards, as the Web.com Finals were originally intended to do!
• the Top10 finishers at the end of the Finals would share in a bonus pool, not unlike the FedExCup, to make up for the lessened prize money (at the bottom, prize money amounts wouldn’t change as dramatically)
• there would always be 1 Golden Ticket available to the money winner, but there could be as many as 3 Golden Tickets if players played well enough (a new Golden Ticket is added when a player wins 2 events)

So my tweaks would level the playing field for everybody and better identify the best players, while creating more rewards for the best players and more excitement for the fans. Not bad for one blog post!

If handiest tweaking the FedExCup turned into as easy?