Was the FedEx Cup rigged? (I kid, I kid)

In yesterday's post on Ernie Els being a quitter, I mentioned Tiger's track record at the four FedEx Cup series events being quite strong. It made me wonder whether or not the four events selected to comprise the FedEx Cup may also have been added to the fray because of how strongly Tiger does at those host venues. After all, Tiger tends to avoid tournaments with host courses that don't suit his eye (ahem, Riviera), and he has a tendency to reappear at events in which he has had some prior amount of success.

Yes, the Tour tried to create its four playoff events in major media markets. But consider several of the major media markets that were left off of the schedule: Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, and others. All but Seattle has some kind of presence on Tour. Why not pick those cities?

Consider Tiger's record at the four FedEx Cup sites. (Opens in new window.)

Tiger has 21 starts at the FedEx Cup sites over his career. In those 21 starts, he has four wins. He has finished in second place in six of those other starts. Basically, he's a 50% chance to finish in the top two. That's as close to a gimme in golf as it gets.

Now, consider the records of Tiger's closest adversaries (at the time the FedEx Cup was created) in the game at these sites. This graphic (new window) displays their best finishes in each of these events.

Their combined record at these sites looks pretty impressive. Vijay has won on three of four sites. Adam Scott has two of his Tour wins at these sites. Six of seven golfers have won on at least one of these courses in a prior playing. The numbers seem to indicate that the world's best, by and large, have a good record on these courses.

Now consider when these best finishes were achieved. With 28 possible starts, there were five times a guy had never played in an event. That leaves 23 possible starts for the anklebiters. In 16 of those 23 starts, the competition achieved their best career finish with Woods in the field. (They're in bold red on the graphic.) Seems like Tiger might not intimidate these guys so much, right? Hold on a minute.

If you take a look at the 16 starts in which these players had their best finish in the event with Tiger in the field, you realize that Woods still beat their best finish in that event in that particular year on 5 occasions. That means that even if they posted their best ever finish that week, Tiger STILL BEAT THEM. Also, when you compare Woods' best finish in these events to the others on this list, Woods has a better career finish than the opponent in 15 of 28 possible cases.

Yes, it's going a long way to accuse the PGA Tour of setting up the Playoffs to Woods' eye. After all, he doesn't seem to like Westchester all that much. He's never won the Tour Championship at East Lake. He only has wins in two of the four events. But, with the above evidence, it's clear that Woods has a historical and psychological advantage on his biggest competition (save for Vijay) at these tournament sites. Woods - like any other sane person - probably enjoys knowing that.

Commissioner Finchem was probably banking on this, too. The question is: will it pay off?