In an attempt to make the FedEx Cup more important, Tim Finchem has asked the US and British Opens to use FedEx Cup Points for exemptions.

If the USGA and R&A have any integrity at all, they’ll turn it down. The USGA should remember that it’s motto is “For The Good of the Game”, not “For the Glorification of the PGA Tour.”

I just read the most amazing stat on ESPN’s website. Apparently, given the way the other players finished, Tiger would have won the FedEx Cup EVEN IF HE HAD NOT PLAYED AT EAST LAKE.

The guy could have taken two weeks off, including the finals and still won the “playoffs.”

Now tell me there’s not something wrong with the points system.

My predictions came true: If Tiger was leading on Friday, the tournament was over.

It was. The striped one finished at 23 under—two better than his previous record, set at the 2000 NEC Invitational.

Notably, Masters winner Zach Johnson finished second in the tournament—although not in the final FedEx Cup standings. That “honor” went to Steve Stricker, who along with Phil Mickelson was the only one with a realistic chance to keep Tiger from signing the $10 million annuity paperwork.

I’m glad that’s over. Now we can go onto the fall season, which for my money will be somewhat more interesting than the FedEx Playoffs. In the Fall series, the second tier of players will be fighting it out for their tour cards. No pampered quitters here. These guys have to finish in the top 125 to keep their privileges.

It would be nice if the Tour would keep an updated list kept a running score of who needed to finish were in order to keep their cards—just as they kept a running appraisal of possibilities in FedEx Cup Points.

The FedEx Cup has been decided. Tiger will take home the ten million dollar check sign the paperwork for the annuity.

Going into this weekend’s event, there were just three players who reasonably could win—Tiger, Phil and Steve Stricker. After two rounds, Tiger is leading Mickelson by seven and Stricker by nine.

The only other two players who had a mathematical chance were K.J. Choi and Rory Sabbatini. But they only had a chance if Tiger finished out of the top 15, which he most decidedly is not going to do.

If Mickelson or Stricker are able to make a game of this, it will only be as a result of one of the biggest collapses in golf history—one of Norman- or VandeVelde- ian proportions.

It’s safe to watch football.

My alma mater—West Virginia has already won this week. Mrs. Goflblogger is hoping that hers—Michigan—can finally put one in the W column.

The PGA Tour is missing a tremendous opportunity with its Tour Championship. Rather than going mano-a-mano against weekend football, the Tour should reinvent the penultimate event of the FedEx Cup as a four-day, mid-week, prime-time sporting event.

Scheduling the Tour Championship as a Tuesday through Friday event would offer a tremendous opportunity to capture both sports fans and casual audiences. Aside from some local baseball coverage and the odd Big East football game on Thursday, September weeknights are largely devoid of sports.

The mid week format would work for television coverage if they moved the venue from East Lake to somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—say, Brandon Dunes—or to Hawaii. At this time of year, sunset is at 7:55 PM in Oregon—nearly 11 pm on the East Coast. So with just thirty players in the event, the final group could tee off at around 2:30 local—or 6:30 Eastern. That’d put the back nine for the last few groups in prime time. Just to be safe, they could put up klieg lights on the final few holes. In Hawaii, Prime Time on the continent is in the middle of the afternoon, local time.

Brandon Dunes would look great on television, and I doubt Oregon has the same dead greens problem that have plagued East Lake. And from what I understand, September is a good month, weatherwise to visit Hawaii. Either offers more exciting vistas than East Lake, which is a fine course, but offers no visual distinction.

To make this work, you’d also need a week off between the third and fourth events. But that just might make the players happier, since the most they’d have to play would be three events in a row. The week off also would give the Tour a chance to promote the heck out of the final event, just as NFL has taken a week off before the Super Bowl.

And if the Tour REALLY wanted golf on a Sunday afternoon, they could televise a Sunday pro-am before the Tuesday start. Thirty players and thirty golf-serious celebs—no comedians; good golfers only.

Scheduling its biggest event in prime time would be a big, bold move for the PGA Tour. And I think it would work.