Posted by Jason Sobel
KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Tim Finchem held a press conference at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, and with such a limited media contingent covering this event, it seemed a pretty good time to get some important questions answered from the commish. Problem is, he's been so visible over the past year -- explaining and re-explaining the FedEx Cup system -- that there isn't much he hasn't spoken about.
Confounded as to what new query I could have answered, I thought of my blog posting from two days ago, in which it was suggested that the PGA Tour be amenable to change in its format, just as NASCAR has done after three years of its own points system. I was pleasantly surprised at Finchem's response, in which he called it a "work in progress." Here's our exchange (the entire transcript can be found here):
Q: NASCAR has recently announced that after three years in the current points system, they will change the format for 2007. Do you see that as something the PGA Tour can look to if the current pointing standing doesn't work in a few years?
A: Absolutely. We ran over the space of two years umpteen models, and those models told us certain things about what we should do, for example, on the interval of points that are awarded for seeding positions. The struggle there was you wanted to be volatile, and you wanted players to have a chance to win it.
On the other hand, you're trying to provide an advantage for players who played better than the other guy all year long, so you want it both ways, and you come up with an interval. That interval tells us certain things about expectations players will have about the playoffs. They may be wrong. The models might be wrong. First year, second year, we might have a situation where, we didn't anticipate that, we ought to fiddle with it. That's just one example.
No, I think it's a work in progress. We'll watch it this year, and we'll learn from this year. And if there are weaknesses, we'll try to address them. Absolutely.
Q: If there are weaknesses that you find after this season, would you be adaptable to changing in the 2008 season?
A: It's not a problem when we're finishing in September to change the details of points, point distribution, intervals, any of those things for next season, not a problem.
You know what? Those are pretty acceptable answers. I'm impressed. Chalk one up to the tour for being malleable to changing the system in coming years.
