Tiger Woods may be the PGA Tour’s cash cow, but the world’s 10th-ranked player will have to earn his way into the FedExCup playoffs, just like everyone else.
Tiger Woods will receive no medical exemption for FedExCup playoffs
Unless Tiger Woods can do something he has not come close to doing so far this season — win at least one of the next two tournaments — he will miss the FedExCup playoffs for the third time since it started in 2007.
Sam Greenwood
So says Commissioner No Soup For You, who, unless Woods can work some of his old magic in the next two weeks, will stage the playoffs without the guy who puts fannies in the recliners and shekels in the pockets of everyone jousting for that season-ending $10 million jackpot.
“Ah, no,” Tim Finchem said in response to a question during a Tuesday press conference to drum up interest in the first leg of the four-game series, The Barclays (h/t Sam Weinman). “And the reason I say that is the competition is set up, it’s not just a playoff event. It’s a year-long competition. Then you would say, I would have to start fiddling with field sizes. So it kind of muddies up the comparative nature of the competition.”
Woods, who enters this week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at 215th in the FEC standings, can turn the commish’s frown upside down with a victory at Firestone or in next week’s PGA Championship, though Tiger’s recent history can’t give Finchem much hope. In the two events Woods has started since back surgery in March, he has missed the cut at the Quicken Loans National and finished 69th in the British Open.
With a paltry 45 points three weeks out from the playoffs, which will kick off at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J., with the top 125 in the standings, Woods is likely to miss the post-season for the third time since the FedExCup series started in 2007. Knee surgery knocked him out of action in 2008 and in 2011 he failed to qualify after missing a healthy chunk of the season following injuries to his knee and Achilles tendon.
Like Woods, who claims his goal in every start is to win, Finchem viewed his playoff TV ratings with rose-tinted Oakleys.
”He’s got a couple tournaments coming up where he’s won on both golf courses and one on which he’s won a lot of times,” Finchem said, referring to Woods’ 2000 PGA Championship triumph at Valhalla (sight of this year’s PGA as well) and eight Ws at Firestone. “So I’m not one of those who are pessimistic about his immediate or long-term future in the sport.”
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