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Top 20 "Alternative" FedEx Cup Points Leaders - Thru March.

You will first see the Top 20 "Alternative" List, then below that you will see an explanation of the "Alternative" Points System.

The "Additonal Notes" sidebars to the right of the list explain what might have happened if the Players Championship had been played rather than Doral-CA.

I have been a fan of the 1.0x - 2.0x - 3.0x points values scale ever since the PGA of America revised its Player of the Year points scale in 1981 (10 points for regular tour win; 20 for wins at Players or World Series of Golf; 30 for Grand Slam Major).

Another inspiration was a (click-on »») Q and A between the PGA Tour and the Media. The very first question asked was (not a direct quote) "why only a 1.00x-1.05x-1.10x points values scale for Fed Ex Cup events", rather than something like a 1.0x-2.0x-3.0x scale.

The explanation given by the PGA Tour was an illustration of a hypothetical points chase in 2004. The Tour claimed that boosting points for the majors would have allowed large leap-frogging of places on the Points List. The Tour offered as an example that 2004 British Open champion could have conceivably finished ahead of Tiger Woods and Ernie Els, solely by earning "so many" points for his Open victory.

Wellllll --- I could not accept the Tour's explanation, so I did some research, applied my own scale, and VOILA --

Shooting Down the "Todd Hamilton" Scenario -- shows the scales and sources used, and where the players finished up 2004 - including Mr. Hamilton! YOU be the Judge!

Thanx-A-Lot and Enjoy,
Frank-0-Sport

not sure what to think about this?

Greetings Green 15 ...

Understandably, it is a lot to chew on.

The main thrust was to show another way of staging the Fed Ex Cup Series (aka Fried Eggs Bake-Off).

Let's consider the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship. The PGA Tour treats it as a regular event - 1.00x weighting, and points awarded just as in any other regular event. Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods both decided to skip the event (not necessarily for that reason alone).

Now, use the ]Tour Championship Points Distribution multiplied by two and - PRESTO! You can tee it up for 72 holes and collect at least 32,000 points -- the same as solo 7th in a regular event (using my regular event distribution).

Of course, you would really want to finish the Mercedes as follows ...
Top 18 -- All points better than solo 5th in regular events
Top 6 -- All points better than solo 3rd in regular events
3rd -- 138,000 points - 34,000 better than 2nd place in most regular events
2nd -- 216,000 points -- same as 1st place in invitationals, 20% more than 1st in regular events
1st -- 360,000 points -- double the first place points in regular events

You wouldn't want to pass THAT up - would you?

Another difference between this "Alternative" set-up and the actual one - "Opposite" events such as Mayakoba-Riviera Maya, US Bank-Milwaukee, Reno-Tahoe and Viking Mississippi award only half-value - IE, 0.5x weighting - points in actual fact. In my "Alternative" scenario, these events get 1.0x treatment because the primary event being held simultaneously carries a 2.0x or 3.0x treatment.

Thanx-A-Lot, Frank-0-Sport

perhaps they need to have multiple items to calculate points. Finishing position, money list, world rank, rank in skills categories, to create the "All around golfer" points list.