The FedEx Cup is a Lame Pension Plan

by Simon, SimonOnSports

Debate as much as you like about the relevance of the FedEx Cup and how semi-retarded it might be, and how you can't just create something and say it is important, think the MLB All Star game, and get people to care. I'm of the standing of, it's better than nothing, and at least their attempting to make golf relevant post PGA Championship. But this is non-debatable: the payment system for winning the FedEx Cup is just plain stupid.

First off I'm sure over the next few weeks if you haven't heard already the prize for the winner of this whole grand playoff system is 10 million dollars. And that sounds absolutely fantastic, some of these players in the 140 man playoff system won't make that in 7 or 8 years. But it's not ten million dollars, it's simply a claim of ten million dollars that you get when you retire. So it essentially does nothing for their life standards now, so for a player like Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson what is really the incentive? Tiger could smartly invest a million dollars of his own money and in 25 years get back the same return.

Furthermore, this is creating massive amounts of confusion about how to pay the player's caddy. Typically caddies get a certain cut of the players tournament earnings. But what how are they supposed to pay their caddies with money they have no idea when they are going to get? For instance say Tiger won the FedEx Cup back in the late 90s when Fluff was his caddy, chances are good that Fluff would either be in a retirement home or dead by the time Tiger retired and received his "winnings". Lotta good that would do Fluff than.

So PGA, if you want to make this whole playoff system relevant, which I am completely for, how about sacking up and actually paying these players instead of giving them a promissory note.