So this is my second ‘sports’ post in a row, but as a guy that played about 80 rounds of golf last year, I had to do this one.

Today marks the start of the 2007 PGA Tour Season with the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Hawaii.  This tournament is nice because it’s the only time golf is on TV during prime time on the east coast.

The PGA Tour is going to be different this year because of the introduction of the FedEx Cup.

The idea of the FedEx Cup is to add a season-long, competitive element to golf culminating in end-of-season playoffs, like all other sports.

The season will run January to August (36 events) with players accumulating points to determine playoff seeding for the FedEx Cup.  The Playoffs will consist of four events between late-August and mid-September to determine the winner of the FedEx Cup.  The field in the first week will be the top 144 players, followed by the top 120, then 70 and then 30 in the final week at the Tour Championship.

I’m already a huge golf fan, but I think this is a great idea that will really make those final four weeks very exciting and highly marketable.

The PGA Tour is also doing this because in recent years some of the top players haven’t been playing in some of the big events at the end of the season.  For example, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson did not play in the 2006 Tour Championship.  Large purses are no longer enough to attract the top players, they already have more money than they can spend.  But to compete in a playoff-type format over four weeks to be crowned PGA champion, that might be a draw.  Let’s hope so.