Hard to fathom Finchem's play-offs

America at Large: Even if one assumes, as one must, that PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem had rocks in his head when he came up with this cockamamie scheme for a four-week "play-off" (his term, not ours) to bring down the curtain on the golf season, there's no doubt the folks at FedEx are getting their money's worth.

If one further assumes the raison d'etre for the company's decision to bankroll Finchem's enterprise was to get FedEx's name before the public, you'd have to say it's succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Having spent last weekend in Dublin and the last few days in New York, one question has dominated conversations on both sides of the Atlantic, to wit: "This FedEx Cup? WTF is it, anyway?"

Well, you begin to explain for openers, Finchem by his own admission modelled it after NASCAR's NexTel Cup . . . Yes? And . . . Now, we're just guessing it never crossed Finchem's mind (nor, for that matter, those of the FedEx people, who are, after all, headquartered in Memphis) that most of the world, and for that matter a significant portion of Americans residing north of the Mason-Line, wouldn't know NASCAR from the Ku Klux Klan, other than to note that they appear to share certain demographic similarities.

(A few years ago Don King, promoting a boxing card in Las Vegas, on the eve of a NASCAR race there, enthusiastically invited the partisans of the latter to buy tickets to his event by welcoming "our redneck brothers").

The FedEx Cup enters its second round tomorrow with the Deutsche Bank Championship, played at the interestingly-named TPC Boston, an Arnold Palmer course located slightly more than 40 miles from Boston itself.

The much-hyped series is plainly an attempt to boost television ratings by diverting attention from the baseball pennant races, the onset of the NFL and college football seasons, and the US Tennis Open, which traditionally have pushed golf off the TV radar screen this time of year.

A large logo painted on the grass at Westchester last weekend heralded the arrival of the "PGA Tour Play-offs", but everyone apart from Finchem already seems to agree the decision to refer to the event as a "play-off" is both misleading and ridiculous. The term implies some sort of knockout result - the winners keep going and the losers fall by the wayside.

In fact, by skipping the inaugural event - the Barclays at Westchester last weekend - Tiger Woods actually improved his position on most of the field, and remains well- positioned in fourth place while 24 other players eliminated themselves from contention.

Although Tiger is playing in Boston - or, to be more accurate, near Boston - this week, it is mainly because the proceeds of the event benefit the Tiger Woods Foundation. In actuality, he could have skipped this one too, and still been positioned to take home the $10 million FedEx first prize. The $10 million "prize," incidentally, is somewhat misleading, since the winner won't actually collect it until he is at least 45. If that turns out to be, for instance, Vijay Singh, who turns 45 in February, the "deferred annuity" won't be deferred much in all, but if it turns out to be who we all think it will turn out to be, the money will be sitting in the FedEx coffers collecting interest for more than a dozen years.

Another question hasn't come up much among armchair viewers (but trust me when I tell you that it has occurred to every player and his caddie) is this: exactly how and by whom are the caddies supposed to collect for their participation in this enterprise?

Say Tiger wins. Steve Williams's cut comes to a cool million dollars. "Sorry, Stevie, but it says the winner doesn't get paid till he's 45." "Oh, that's cool, Tiger. I can wait till next year when I turn 45." "Sorry, Steve. Not when you're 45. When I'm 45. Like in 2020."

It isn't at all clear that raising the stakes is destined to raise the interest level. We remain unpersuaded that the fellow watching a golf tournament in his livingroom very much cares about the size of the winner's check.

It isn't just the golf-watching public that doesn't understand the FedEx Cup. Most of the players can't make sense of it either. And coming as it does in the wake of four majors and preceding (depending on the year) the Ryder or President's Cups, the FedEx Cup seems to many decidedly anti-climactic.

"It could be," Steve Stricker supposedly said last week, "that we have too many cups already." Of course, when Stricker voiced that observation it was before he won the Barclays and, at least temporarily, vaulted himself into the FedEx Cup lead. (Stricker, whose win was his first in 146 tournaments, now has 104,950 points. Tiger, in fourth place, has 100,000, and he didn't even play at Westchester).

Play-offs? From this vantage point it looks more as if golf has decided to inaugurate its Silly Season a few months earlier than usual.