Dolch: Beem's play again has impact on Playoffs
By Craig Dolch, PGATOUR.COM Contributor
It was fitting Rich Beem shot a pair of 63s last weekend at the Wyndham Championship to qualify for the start of this week's PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup at The Barclays.
Beem deserved a spot in the 144-man field, not only for the performance in Greensboro that lifted him from 166th to 114th on the final week of the PGA TOUR Regular Season, but also for how the former PGA champion helped bring about changes to the FedExCup after his strong performance in last year's inaugural Playoffs.
Beem started last year's Playoffs as the 134th seed. He finished seventh at The Barclays but only moved up to 113th in the overall FedExCup standings. He then was eliminated after the second cut to 70 players when he finished 30th at the Deutsche Bank Championship (where he was tied for the lead after 36 holes) and only climbed three spots.
His peers on the PGA TOUR Policy Board didn't think that was fair, so they changed the points breakdown to make the playoffs -- and payoffs -- more volatile. Under the new system, he would have risen to 68th and had a better chance to keep playing through the BMW Championship and THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, where the field is cut to the top 30.
Instead of six players having a shot at winning the FedExCup last year, the new rules would have given 12 a chance entering THE TOUR Championship. But with Tiger Woods able to use both of his legs back then, did anyone else have a chance?
Nope. Woods dusted the field by eight shots.
Last year it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Woods would win, even though he skipped one of the four Playoff events. With two wins and a tie for second in the three Playoff events he entered, Woods won last year's FedExCup by a whopping 13,033 points. Heck, Phil Mickelson finished third last year, and he also skipped one of the playoff events.
There will be no walkover this time. This year, it's more like the NCAA Basketball Tournament, where anybody can get hot and win. And chances are that whoever wins the FedExCup at East Lake can use the $10 million first prize a lot more than Woods.
As the regular-season points leader, Woods has had his total reset at 100,000 and that number obviously won't move. But those behind him can move up faster because there are more points available this year (for instance, a third-place finish is worth 5,400 points this year, compared to 3,400 last year). That means Beem, who starts with 92,870 points, can pass Woods even if he finishes second this week.
Of course, the other 142 players also have a chance to earn more points, so that increases the volatility for everyone. You can't have everyone start the Playoffs all even, like other sports, because that would dilute the importance of the 33 regular-season events, giving the players at the top of the standings the best chance of staying there.
Another factor that levels the field is that two of the first three Playoff events -- The Barclays and the BMW Championship -- have been moved to different courses. The Barclays has been shifted from Westchester Country Club in Harrison, N.Y., which had hosted a PGA TOUR event each year since 1967, to Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J.
Ridgewood has hosted a Ryder Cup and two Champions Tour majors -- but never a PGA TOUR event. No doubt Padraig Harrington, fresh off his pair of major titles, is unhappy about that move because he won at Westchester in 2005 and was runner-up in 2004. Only two players -- Mickelson and Steve Stricker -- have played Ridgewood before this week, but not in tournament conditions.
The BMW Championship also is moving from Cog Hill near Chicago to Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis. Bellerive hosted the PGA Championship in 1992 and was scheduled to host the World Golf Championships-American Express Championship in 2001 but the tournament was canceled in the wake of the tragedy of Sept. 11. Nick Faldo's advice could come in handy here --- he finished tied for second, three shots behind winner Nick Price, in 1992. Alas, the BMW Championship will be telecast by NBC, not CBS.
I'm thinking someone will come from outside the top 10 like, say, Carl Pettersson, who won the Wyndham Championship to improve from 58th to 13th, to win the FedExCup. Pettersson also won the PGA TOUR's Fall Finish in 2005, so he has a history of playing well late in the year.
But a benefit to Woods' absence from this year's Playoffs is the country-club FedExCup pools are more interesting. Anybody can win this thing.
Even Rich Beem.
Thanks to Rich Beem.
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