Tour needs to add risk into mix of its rewards

ATLANTA - The words "Super Bowl" have been bandied about the golf course this week.

Golf's "Fall Classic," some are calling it. A NASCAR-style "Chase for the Tour Championship."

This is what Commissioner Tim Finchem and his folks in the PGA Tour think tank are supposedly going to unveil in some incomplete form or another today at East Lake Golf Club.

Among the many changes the PGA Tour is considering to enhance its overall product is a revamped formula for the season-ending event on Bobby Jones' home course. It will include all sorts of new bells, whistles and big-bucks bonuses that are sure to please the players most likely to cash in on the event.

But for the public and TV viewers who have given the Tour Championship a collective yawn through the years, the formula changes might be as well received as New Coke, which was anything but classic.

Everybody is all for moving up the date to September and stoking up the regular tour events in between the PGA Championship and Tour championships with whatever it takes to entice Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and their ilk to the same course to compete against one another.

The problem with the Tour Championship, however, isn't the build-up to it or even the week in which it's held. The problem is the tournament itself.

It's got no juice. It's got nothing at stake. Not only is it not golf's Super Bowl, it's about as relevant as the Pro Bowl. It's so insignificant that Mickelson stayed home to go trick-or-treating with his three kids.

"This is supposed to be our big finale, but it doesn't feel like it," said Kenny Perry, making his fifth straight and eighth career Tour Championship start this week at East Lake. "It just feels like a reward for the year."

That's the problem. When it comes to golf, what is reward without risk?

If Finchem and the PGA Tour want to liven up its season-ender and really make it interesting, they're going about it all wrong. Throwing more money at the already wealthy participants isn't the answer.

Throwing a little risk into the matter can make all the difference. Risk in the form of, say, a Masters Tournament invitation.

Think that carrot might inspire a few players to take the tournament more seriously than your average pro-am?

Once the PGA Tour makes its 2007 schedule official, the Masters is likely to respond in the form of some tweaking to its qualification standards. With new dates for the Players and Tour championships, new deadlines might have to be set for the top-40 money leaders and top-50 world rankings.

It's likely the Masters will want to cut off the money-list invitations at the culmination of the most substantive part of the season - after the Tour Championship. If that's the case, why not make it interesting?

Instead of inviting only 30 players for a free money grab that is exciting to no one except their agents and spouses, let 50 players tee it up during the longer daylight-saving days of September.

Think that might get the players' attention?

How comfortable would it be sitting in the 40th spot with four rounds to play knowing 10 players are right behind you trying to steal your tee time at Augusta National?

This is sizzle. This is theater. Not just winners, but losers.

Finchem would like you to believe that playing for a money title or player of the year is compelling enough. But most of the time, like this season, both of those titles have already been decided before the Tour Championship even starts.

Adding a deeper stake to the event can only enhance the tournament. The story within the story can be as compelling as the tournament itself.

Look at the PGA Championship, which elicits almost as much tension from players trying to sneak onto a Ryder Cup team at the deadline as it does trying to squeeze in victory at the season's final major.

Or the Players Championship, which in its current March date is the last deadline for players to play their way into the Masters through money earned or world rankings.

This back-end stuff can be as entertaining as the leaderboard.

Just ask Lucas Glover, who spent a couple of frightful hours waiting to see if he made it into this year's Tour Championship field.

"It was pretty nerve-wracking," Glover said of qualifying at No. 30 after last week's Chrysler Championship in Tampa, Fla. "That was the most math I've done since college. Seriously. ... I knew I passed one and three passed me, so that was it. I was in on the number."

Now imagine that math being done by a Clemson graduate calculating whether he would be making his first trip to the Masters.

Finchem and Co. haven't crossed all the T's or dotted all the I's on the proposed changes to the future structure of the PGA Tour. There's still time to make the right moves that apply the proper risk and make the Tour Championship worth watching.

"Right now everybody sees this golf tournament as a bonus at the end of the year - phew," said David Toms, exhaling to illustrate that this isn't a hold-your-breath event even for the players.

"Instead I think it will be treated more like the Super Bowl where it is the daddy at the end. It probably should be more that way."

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.