The contrast in TV choices on Sunday night was quite illuminating.
On one hand there was the Tour Championship, the grand finale of the world’s biggest golf tour at East Lake in Atlanta. The bonus pool for the FedEx Cup was in play, paying out $15 million to the winner.
At the same time, there were the second day foursomes and fourballs at the Solheim Cup at the Inverness Club in Toledo.
There were some modest sponsors’ bonuses going to some big name players for making either the US or European teams. There was some free kit that looked a little ill-fitting and uncomfortable on the US side in particular. Other than that it was paying out the square root of nothing.
Guess which was by far the more entertaining?
Matchplay and women better than strokeplay and the modern men
See you on Monday! 👋 pic.twitter.com/DwpqSDFxRg
— The Solheim Cup (@TheSolheimCup) September 6, 2021
Aye, I’m bound to hold the hand up here as an unreconstructed crumblie who loves the cut and thrust of matchplay golf (proper matchplay, not that daft version the PGA Tour play in March).
I also find the modern men’s game with its bash, find it and bash again style more than a little wearing at the end of a long season. Sometimes even at the start.
I’m indebted to several people – notably Beth Ann Nichols of Golfweek – for the nugget that the $15 million trousered by Patrick Cantlay at East Lake equates to the entire year’s earnings of all the players at Inverness.
Cantlay’s done a decent job recently in the spotlight. Previously we thought him just another colourless college boy who was painfully slow. But he’s given some thoughtful and considered opinions now that people are actually asking him for them.
But however much he is worthy of admiration, Sunday’s finish was deadly dull. The format actually ensured that Cantlay could play merely solidly and still secure the big prize. Those pursuing him had really no chance, although Jon Rahm gave it a fair lash.
Toledo more fun than Atlanta
🇪🇺 TEAM EUROPE 🇪🇺
We wish things were different & more of our fans could be here.
Make some noise for us tomorrow from home, we can hear you 🔊#TeamEurope pic.twitter.com/FZqTvc1CKb
— Solheim Cup Team Europe (@SolheimCupEuro) September 5, 2021
Up north, there was much more bang for far fewer bucks.
There were screaming crowds (okay, I too wish they had some variety other than simply “USA-USA-USA”) there were some spats, fist-pumps, fluctuating fortunes, the lead changing hands SEVEN times in one match. In terms of excitement, it was Game of Thrones vs Homes Under The Hammer.
What does this prove? For one, the women’s game needs more spotlight and attention, much more credit than it’s currently getting. They even play classic courses like the “resto-modded” (if it were a classic car) Inverness the way they’re supposed to be played.
The old Donald Ross track has been lauded this weekend, and suggested for a return to major championship golf (by which of course they mean men’s major golf). But they’d probably have to ruin it with glacial green speeds and hot-housed, drawn-in rough for the guys. We’d have something cartoonish rather than what we’ve seen in the Solheim.
The men have their own version of this multi-national team golf thing coming up in the Ryder Cup in Wisconsin. Of course it’s going to have screaming crowds, spats, fist-pumps, and all that stuff.
But it’s still going to be predominantly a contest of driving distance and wedges out of the rough. The Solheim has been a much more rounded form of golf.
Changing the endless grind of 72-hole strokeplay
Ladies and gentlemen, it's officially @RyderCup month.#WhistlingWednesday pic.twitter.com/rww3jgq9iY
— Ryder Cup USA (@RyderCupUSA) September 1, 2021
Clearly we can’t have countless intercontinental matchplay events, but there has to be a way out of the grind of 72-hole strokeplay every other week of the year.
Yes, it’s the best way of identifying the best golfer any given week, but every other sport in the firmament doesn’t seem afraid of daft results or crazy upsets the way we in golf seem to be.
Mixed golf would seem to me to be a good way of shaking things up. We seem to always miss the easy route for this format in the Olympics every four years. But I’m intrigued with some suggesting that the Presidents Cup might become a mixed event.
An international event featuring the top Asian women? Why not?
72-hole strokeplay is the standard for the purist, but if it was in any way attractive to the uncommitted they’d surely be committed by now, given how much of it there is.
There’s potentially big new audiences out there. Let’s be imaginative and try something different more than one week every year.
Fixing the FedEx? You probably can’t
The sun sets on another season. 🌇 pic.twitter.com/IzHOLRVlRe
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 6, 2021
It’s in large part the slavish attachment to 72-hole strokeplay that makes the FedEx Cup so underwhelming. The best excitement in this year’s was effectively a matchplay situation, Cantlay vs Bryson DeChambeau in the penultimate event.
Trying to fashion a thrilling finish every year has proved impossible task for the blazers of the PGA Tour. They could let there be 32 qualifiers for the Tour Championship, seed them by their FedEx points and have a matchplay competition. But their utter aversion to chance – probably unique in all sport – precludes that.
The handicap system in play at the Tour Championship has not worked, it’s fair to say.
I get that there has to be some recognition of a season-long effort factored into the finale.
But the ludicrous extra points in the first two weeks – you get three times more for winning at Liberty National than Augusta National – basically taints that idea anyway.
Cantlay’s win at the BMW and two-shot advantage at East Lake meant he had too much breathing room for a player of his calibre. They should just let it go, and accept that once in a while a Bill Haas is going to win the thing.