ESPN Player Confidential (Insider article, but text within)

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Collins: What do you honestly think about the wraparound season?

Anonymous Player: I think it's terrible. There's no reason for it. We play nine months. There's a FedEx winner at the end of September. I think we should have three months off like everyone else. But we're still short of every other sport. Every other sport is six months [off]. We have barely a month. ... The reason we have to do it is because we don't have an owner like every other sport. ...

I think it's a joke. We have 47 tournaments in the calendar year. So people are like, "Why don't we ever get to see Rory [McIlroy] in this? Why don't we get to see Jason Day in this? Why don't we get to see Tiger in this?" ... We have too many events. If we had 25 events and all 25 events all counted for a lot of [FedEx Cup] points and a lot of money, you would see a lot of your favorite players in 20 of those events because they would have to play. ... So unfortunately for all these great tournament directors and all these great tournaments that are trying to put on all these great events, they're only going to see their top guys, I mean if they're lucky, I mean I'm talking like Powerball lucky, they're going to see their guy maybe once. Maybe once. That's unfortunate.

If it was a more condensed field, a more condensed tournament schedule, you would see your great players play ... [they'd] have to play every week. And it would mean more every single week. When you have so many tournaments, those guys don't have to play.

Q: So what does that mean for the guys at the bottom? Doesn't that give them a chance?

A: It gives them a chance, but let's be honest -- who moves the needle? The top 50 [on the PGA Tour], not the bottom 50. What the tour has done is create tournaments for the bottom 50. Nobody cares about the bottom 50. ... All they've done is create jobs and money for those guys because the top 50 aren't playing those events.

Look at [the] Dell Match Play Championship against [the] Puerto Rico [Open at Coco Beach]. Tony Finau won. Now Tony Finau is a great player. Don't get me wrong. Good winner. Long player. Nice player. He won. Could he beat Jason Day? Probably not. Could he beat seven players in a row to beat Jason Day in the Match Play? We don't know ... which is another reason why Phil Mickelson said opposite events should not count.

Q: At all?

A: They shouldn't count. They shouldn't even be there.

Q: Really?

A: No, I don't think they should be there.

Q: It didn't get him into the Masters. But for a guy like Finau, how does he get an opportunity to play against the best guys?

A: He has to play better in the big events. ... [and an opposite-field win] should not be a two-year exemption. If you're not going to get into the Masters and you're not going to get full [FedEx Cup] points, and if you're only going to get 250 points, which 500 points is a full win, you should only get a one-year exemption.

Q: Does [the wraparound schedule] change the way you schedule your events?

A: A little bit. It's too long. The sad thing is, it doesn't even matter about me. It matters about the top 20 in the world. The top 20 in the world are not going to play these events. The top 20 in the world move the needle. Tiger used to move the needle a lot.

Q: Tiger was the needle.

A: He was the needle. He's not around anymore. We don't know if he's coming around again. We hope [he will], but we can't count on that. Now you take the Jordan Spieths, you take the Jason Days, you take these young guns, they're still not Tiger. Nobody's ever going to be Tiger. We know that. Lotta people don't know that. But they're not going to be.

The great play of Jason Day, the great play of Jordan Spieth, the great play of Rickie Fowler -- combined, they're not Tiger. ... They're just not. Tiger is Tiger. It's a Michael Jordan. You cannot compare. It's actually, in my opinion, it's an embarrassment and an insult to compare those guys to a Tiger Woods. ... It's an absolute embarrassment to say that a Rory McIlroy, a Jason Day, a Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, all these guys are going to compete with Tiger's records. Combined, they don't even have half his records yet. ...

Now I talked to a certain individual about this on the PGA Tour -- older veteran -- and he said the same exact thing. We're catering to the bottom 50 as opposed to the top 50. ... If you're an exempt player, and if [you're a top] 125 guy from the year before, you really don't have to worry about your job because if you play well, you're going to keep that status.

Now if you played in all the West Coast [events], if you played in Honda, if you played in Bay Hill, if you get in the invitationals and you played just decent, you don't have to worry about a guy that played well in an opposite event because the opposite event is trying to take care of the guy from 150-200 on the list. Which, now that sounds nice, now you've given the guy an opportunity to make some money ... but it's not moving anything. It's not helping anything.

Q: Do fans come out to see the top five guys?

A: I'll put [Spieth, Day, Fowler and McIlroy] on one end of the range, and I'll put Tiger over here, alone. Where do you think the crowd's going? Four combined. Those four combined over here. I'm going to give you 100,000 fans, walk into a place. Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy. And I'm going to put Tiger on the other end, 100 yards away. Where do you think the fans are going?

Q: That's easy. They're going to Tiger.

A: One hundred percent.

Q: What's the one question you get asked about that you have to lie about the most?

A: What do you think of the top players? Bubba [Watson], Rory [McIlroy], Rickie [Fowler], Jason Day, these [players] that are actually taking over now. Those are questions we get asked all the time. And I will tell you, flat out, they're nice players. ... I'm not taking anything away from them. They're very good. ... [But] I don't see them as a needle-mover. If you go through the players from 1900 to today, I don't see them as a [Ben] Hogan. I don't see them as a [Byron] Nelson. I don't see them as a [Arnold] Palmer, [Jack] Nicklaus, Tiger. The last one's a Tiger. ... After that, we're talking about nobody. Nice players who are going to make a lot of money, but that's it. If we're talking about game-changers, we don't have a game-changer yet.

Q: So when people ask you, what do you think about the new guys, you gotta be like, oh these guys are fantastic ...

A: They're fantastic. They've beaten the f--- out of me [on the golf course]. They have, and that's fine. I've seen the next greatest thing ever come up [in Woods]. If anyone wants to compare his 10 years, even his like five years, to anybody, I'm all ears. ... Nonetheless, what he has done, these kids of today ... combined, still have a long way to go. Combined. ... Rickie doesn't have a major. Jason Day has what? One. Jordan Spieth has two. Rory has four. That's seven. That's half. That's half [of Woods' 14 majors].

Q: Which would you rather have, an Olympic gold medal or a win in a PGA Tour event?

A: I'll take my [PGA] win every day of the week. You know why? Mine pays money. I gotta live. I gotta eat. I gotta pay bills. Mine paid me a million dollars. And a two-year exemption on tour. What is the Olympics going to give you? You know who [picks an Olympic win]? You know who says that? The guy who is already making $30-40 million a year. He doesn't care.

If you want to [ask] the 75th and 76th guy on tour, you're going to get a different answer. ...

The guy who's No. 1 in the world, if he's [an American], let's say [the guys who are Nos. 3 and 6 in the world rankings], those guys are making a lot of money. They've got multiple wins. ... Of course they're going to give you that answer. ... I'll give you a bet: You go to [a PGA Tour event] and say, go up to a 100 to 125 guy on the money list last year and go, "Would you rather take a PGA Tour win or an Olympic [gold medal]." You can have a PGA Tour win and a million dollars, plus a two-year exemption, and you're counting your contract money or an Olympic win with zero money and zero contract money. You know what the answer is. ...

[Players from Nos.] 10 to 200 in the world are on my side.

Submitted May 11, 2016 at 04:24PM by jpole1 http://ift.tt/21XOWCa