FanHouse FedExCup

Heath Slocum was, by all accounts, the unlikeliest of golfers to win the Barclays. Sure, he had the lead late, but Tiger Woods was charging, Ernie Els was just a stroke back, Steve Stricker was matching him shot-for-shot and, most importantly, he had a lengthy par putt on 18 to secure, at worst, a playoff with Stricker.

But he buried the putt, Stricker missed and Slocum only had to avoid an eagle hole-out from Frederik Jacobson to win the Barclays -- his third tournament win ever -- in surprising fashion given his 72 and 70 in the second and third rounds, respectively.

Webb Simpson, who led the majority of the tournament, must have heard the proverbial footsteps that we talk about any time Tiger is just a few strokes behind the leaders heading into Sunday of a tournament. Either that or we can just chalk up Simpson's Sunday meltdown to inexperience.

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I love watching golf on television because it's basically like taking a nap with your eyes open. The drama is infrequent and slow-developing, and save the five or six really big tournaments on the schedule each year, I consider every event as really nothing more than a bunch of guys enjoying a nature walk while occasionally stopping to hit a golf ball. Unlike, say, the NFL, it requires virtually no commitment on the part of viewer, which makes it very liberating.

But enough with the new-age-y, feel-good stuff; the point is that without Tiger Woods competing, the story remains the same: nobody's watching. And with each passing week, the ratings plummet, which is pretty impressive given how low they were following the British Open, and then, a month later, the PGA Championship.

Apparently, though, congratulations are in order for last week's BMW Championship.

The third round Saturday of the BMW Championship had a 1.1 overnight rating on NBC, down from a 2.6 in 2007; and Sunday's fourth round had a 1.2 overnight rating, down from a 3.2 in 2007.

That works out to a 58 percent drop in viewership in last week's third round when compared to 2007, and a 63 percent drop for the final round. Those numbers must have advertisers lining up to buy commercial time for the Tour Championship in two weeks.

It'll be interesting to see what happens at the Ryder Cup next Thursday. The story lines are compelling enough to suggest ratings would improve, but Padraig Harrington's back-to-back major victories this summer didn't move the needle. In fact, just the opposite happened, which is why I'm not too optimistic anything will change until whatshisname comes back.

Maybe some point soon, the brainiacs behind the FedEx Cup will find a way to make it relevant. As it stands, the four-event playoff was decided after two weeks, when Vijay Singh had back-to-back overtime victories. Which made Camilo Villegas' victory at today's BMW the equivalent of a Week 17 win for an NFL team already headed to the postseason.

But the third leg of the FedEx Cup wasn't without drama, thanks to Singh:

...Singh, who won the first two events, tied for 44th and earned enough points that all he has to do is complete four rounds at the Tour Championship in two weeks to collect the $10 million payoff. But the surly Singh didn't seem terribly grateful.

In a move that took some shine off the tour's new prize, Singh refused to speak to NBC Sports and walked briskly past a group of other media after finishing his round.

You know, Vijay is known as much for his prickly demeanor as he is for his tireless work ethic and horrendous putting stroke, but I have a hard time getting too worked up about him blowing off the media after an event.

And, frankly, I'm not sure how he's being ungrateful by refusing to give NBC a couple minutes. Not unless they had something to do with him winning twice in two weeks. Otherwise, what's the problem? Could Singh have handled it better? Yeah, sure. But at least he didn't dust off the ole "kiss my ass, everybody" routine on his way to the parking lot.

Did anyone really watch golf yesterday? I mean, other than people just flipping through the channels during football commercials?

Tiger Woods won the $1.26 million Tour Championship as well as the $10 million FedEx Cup, which was the PGA Tour's attempt at getting more people to pay attention to golf late in the year with a playoff-style format. Of course, we know Tiger is the best golfer on the planet, and we would have known that whether he won this silly FedEx Cup thing or not, and Tiger showed his disdain for the thing by skipping the first playoff event. Still, he tried to be a team player yesterday:

"Once you got into the playoffs, you're playing against the best guys and the hottest players. You have to play well," Woods said. "We had some great drama. In the end, it was a lot of fun for all of us."

But yeah: It's football season, and some artificial playoff designed to get us to care about golf just isn't going to work.

The Debriefing is a column that runs every weekday at 9:00 a.m. here on FanHouse. It goes deep into one issue and then bounces around to a plethora of smaller ones ... and does it all in a way that will make you feel like the prettiest girl at the cotillion. Bookmark this page, and visit daily.



So, are you psyched about next week's FedEx Cup? Yeah, me neither. Are you confused about it? Yeah, so is everyone else, including those who will be participating in it. Do you have no idea what the FedEx Cup even is? Yeah, don't sweat it.

If you ask the PGA Tour people to explain the FedEx Cup, they'll tell you it's a year-long system of accumulating points that eventually culminates in an exciting 4-tournament playoff, the winner of which earns $10 million, the prestigious-because-the-PGA-said-so FedEx Cup, and the respect of his peers and golf fans everywhere.

If you ask me to explain the FedEx Cup, I'll tell you that it's a contrived, artificial NASCAR rip-off that is unnecessary, meaningless (at least for the time being), and, depending on who plays and who doesn't, potentially excruciatingly boring.

And if you ask Tiger Woods to explain the FedEx Cup -- and his opinion is the most important of all -- he might tell you that's it's something he'll do if he's bored on August 23rd.

(Also at the bottom: ... Keith Bulluck knows how to carry a grudge ... Pacman finds something new and constructive to do with the recess that Roger Goodell granted him ... David Beckham plays, and does so quite well ... and Antwan Barnes belongs in handcuffs ... )