Fed Ex Cup

The FedEx Cup

The FedEx Cup

The FedEx Cup has been adopted as the PGA’s playoff system. The race for the FedEx Cup has been active for the past three years with the 2009 FedEx Cup race just ending. The winner of the FedEx Cup is rewarded with a $10 million prize for consistent success throughout the season and also during the playoff weeks. $9 million cash is paid to the winner with $1 million going into the player’s retirement fund (2008). Other payouts to runner ups go directly into he retirement fund. Tiger Woods has won twice and Vijay Singh has the third title.

The FedEx Cup was put into place to make the PGA season more exciting with a bigger meaning to the last tournament, the players championship. The FedEx cup winds up distorting actual season long performance and awarding a player who can make a charge during the last few tournaments of the season. The points system awards points during the season for placing in events. For example, the winner of a tournament will receive the highest amount of points and the points will decrease as each finishing spot goes down. What can happen is that a player can win one week, and fail to miss the cut the next week, and a player who had 2 top 10 finishes can be the player with more points.

Points double during the last events of the season rewarding players who can make a late season charge. Before the last tournament of the season, the points are reset allowing for anyone who is in the exclusive top 30 points leaders to win the whole FedEx cup (2009). Tiger Woods had a chance of losing the FedEx Cup in 2009 even with 5 tour victories which was by far the most by any player. The reason for the changes put into place was because Vijay Singh had locked up the FedEx Cup in 2008 before the final championship. All he had to do to win was to complete the event.

NASCAR has a similar system where drivers race for the Nextel Cup. The PGA system was modeled after this event. The whole reason for these championships is to...