The PGA Tour's playoffs have been extended for at least five more years with the sponsorship renewal by FedEx. PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem announced on Wednesday that FedEx umbrella sponsorship has been extended for the four-event season finale until 2017.
"We're delighted with the opportunity to make this announcement," Finchem said as the Accenture Match Play event was just about to begin at Dove Mountain. "That's become a big part of what the PGA Tour is about."
"It has had the effect of pulling our season together. We're going to try to make some adjustments in the next couple of years to do that with the FedExCup in an even more impactful way."
The playoffs were launched in 2007 and the extension is worth $175 million as FedEx will continue to offer $35 million in total bonus money to players. The winner receives additional $10 million which will increase over the coming phase.
"How that plays out in terms of the distribution of dollars we're not sure, but we're certainly going forward, not backwards during this term," Finchem said.
The FedEx marketing chief Mike Glenn said, "We're very pleased with the decision to extend the season."
"I can only point to the last two years when we literally felt the winner changed shot by shot on Sunday, which is what the experts would really like to have happen every year," Glenn said. "The drama that plays itself out now at the Tour Championship, and particularly on Sunday, when literally the winner hangs in the balance of the very next shot, that is probably best illustrated by Bill Haas' shot out of the water on No. 17."
Bill Haas beat Hunter Mahan in the 2011 FedEx Cup and won its $10 million bonus in the Tour Championship in Atlanta.
"I don't know how much more drama we can get. I think the changes in the point system have really contributed to that. Are there opportunities to improve it further? Perhaps. But we're pretty pleased with where it is right now."
