The confusion is so vast it is at times comedic. As one contributor to the readers' forum on TheSandtrap.com put it:
"I understand women better than I understand how the FedEx Cup works!"
The writer is hardly alone. Last year's winner of professional golf`s flabbergasting competition didn't even know he had won.
"Well," Bill Haas said to a press question as to when, exactly, he realized he had just won $10 million in sports' goofiest championship, "we went up and did some TV interviews up in the grandstands there on 18 and both trophies were there and there was no other player."
Haas knew he'd won the trophy for Tour Championship – blasting out of a water hazard on the second hole of a playoff to defeat Hunter Mahan – but seemingly had no idea that he had also taken the game's biggest prize.
Perhaps this is because the PGA does not allow its golfers to carry an abacus in their bag.
"When you teed off in the playoff," one incredulous journalist asked Haas, "you did (ital)not know(end ital) you were playing for the FedEx Cup title and the $10 million."
"Uh-uh."
"How is that possible?"
"I didn't ask – and nobody told me."
This year's playoff championship – with the top pros currently playing the BMW Championship to decide which 30 of them will move on to the final event, the Tour Championship – is not much clearer.
As Tiger Woods – a two-time winner of the $10-million prize – said a week ago at the Deutsche-Bank leg of the final three tournaments in what is considered golf's playoffs: "You could win all three of these events and still lose the FedEx Cup. That's kind of the nature of how it's set up."
Let us accept that someone from FedEx or perhaps the PGA – which actually has a website called "FedEx Cup 101" – could, with time, patience and a great deal of paper, pencil and erasers, explain how, exactly, it is set up. But who cares? Most golfers laugh at the FedEx Cup and most other sports fans are far, far too busy with the baseball stretch, the opening of the football season or, alas, the death of the hockey season to get caught up in a "tournament" that seems it was designed by Rubik.
Going into this weekend's final two rounds at Crooked Stick in Indiana, the standings are: 1. Rory McIlroy +3, 14 events, 4,799 points, 3 wins; 2. Nick Watney, -1, 23 events, 3,468.37 points, 1 win; 3. Woods, even, 17 events, 3,416.74 points, 3 wins; 4. Brandt Snedeker, -2, 20 events, 3,194.45 points, 1 win; 5. Louis Oosthuizen, +16, 17 events, 2,909.06 points, 0 wins…..
Readers still conscious will receive a free sleeve of Titleist balls…..
The Tour Championship could hold some drama, as it did last year – even if Bill Haas had no idea what was happening – but it might not, as well. The only certainty is that someone will win the event, those who qualify to play in it will get exemptions into the Masters and the U.S. and British Opens, and someone who likely doesn't even need the money will get a $10-million cheque from FedEx.
And what does FedEx get in return? Perhaps they feel it is marketing money well spent. Certainly they would say so. But they have to know, as well, that their "championship" is subject to more ridicule and miscomprehension than any other in sport. Fans like scoreboards, not computer programs, to determine who won.
The advertising world, of course, is filled with bad campaigns – remember New Coke? – and sports has certainly had its share of marketing schemes gone sour. Baseball fans in Cleveland have never forgotten "10-cent Beer Night" a generation ago when a game had to be forfeited after fans mooned the players, littered the field with cups and whatever else they could toss and, at one point, even stole off with the glove of one of the visiting fielders.
The best laugh regarding an marketing promotion, however, comes from an episode of (ital)WKRP in Cincinnati(end ital), though, when station manager Arthur Carlson paid to have live turkeys dropped from a helicopter , only to have the heavy birds plunge to the ground in from of terrified fans.
"Oh the humanity!" cried Les Nessman, reporting live at the event. "The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement! Not since the Hindenburg Tragedy has there been anything like this!"
"As God is my witness," a sputtering Carlson tried to explain. "I thought turkeys could fly."
Actually, they do…a bit.
Not so sure the FedEx Cup ever will, though.
Roy MacGregor