Golf | FedEx Cup baffles players

TULSA, Okla. — Boo Weekley doesn't know what it is all about, except he can win $10 million if his chips fall the right way, not to mention his putts and bunker shots. Tiger Woods says it is an experiment, and Phil Mickelson says he is no expert on the procedure, the protocol or the formula.

What they are all talking about is the fledgling FedEx Cup, a $63 million, four-tournament playoff series that is struggling to get respect from the players, fans and media, despite a strong push by the PGA Tour.

Weekley said he doesn't think much about the new playoff.

"I don't know nothing about the FedEx Cup," he said. "I just know I'm playing golf and that's all that matters to me."

Weekley predicted he would eventually figure it out.

"Maybe in a couple of years. ... I was never good at math," he said.

Signed through 2012, FedEx is investing a reported $40 million in the playoff process, hoping a NASCAR-like, seasonlong points race and subsequent tournament-playoff format will bring down a checkered flag.

On Aug. 23, the first of four consecutive weeks of $7 million playoff tournaments, the Barclays at Westchester Country Club, begins in Rye, N.Y. It is the official FedEx kickoff, but top-ranked Woods might not play. Mickelson might not, either.

The remaining tournaments in the playoff are the Deutsche Bank Championship, the BMW Championship and The Tour Championship. Woods and Mickelson are expected to play in those three.

Here's how the FedEx playoff experiment works:

Players have accumulated points according to their play in tournaments all season. The Wyndham Championship, which starts Thursday in Greensboro, N.C., is the last chance for players to accumulate FedEx Cup points. The top 144 in points are eligible to play at Westchester.

After Wyndham, the point totals are thrown out and players are given new totals based on what they have accumulated. In the reseeding, No. 1 — Woods — gets 100,000 points, No. 2 gets 99,000, and so on, down to No. 144 with 84,700 points. The idea behind the reseeding is to make sure no one clinches the FedEx Cup title before The Tour Championship.

A win in any of the first three playoff tournaments is worth 9,000 points, second place 5,400 points and on down to 100 points. The winner of the Tour Championship will earn 10,300 points.

The points leader after The Tour Championship gets a $10 million bonus — deferred compensation, put into the player's retirement plan and paid out at 45.

Notes

• The Presidents Cup, which starts Sept. 27 at Royal Montreal, will be played in Canada for the first time. Gary Player, captain of the International team, took Mike Weir of Canada and Nick O'Hern of Australia as his wild-card picks. "Mike is a hero in his country, deservedly so," Player said.

U.S. captain Jack Nicklaus used his picks on Lucas Glover and Hunter Mahan.

Woods was the top U.S. qualifier, based on PGA Tour earnings the last two years. Woods leads a group that also features Jim Furyk, Mickelson, Zach Johnson, Charles Howell III, David Toms, Scott Verplank, Steve Stricker, Stewart Cink and Woody Austin.

• Mickelson will make his Asian Tour debut in the Singapore Open, which starts Nov. 1, organizers said.

• Sunday's final round of Woods' fourth PGA Championship victory earned CBS an overnight rating of 6.8, the fifth-highest overnight rating for the event since 1986. But it didn't match Woods' three previous PGA Championship wins, in 1999 (7.7 rating), 2000 (10.0) and 2006 (7.2), or his one-stroke loss to Rich Beem in 2002 (8.0).

Overnight ratings measure the 55 largest TV markets in the country, and each rating point represents about 735,000 households.