PGA tour season set to end with whimper

Reuters

FORMAT CHANGE NEEDED: Colombia Camilo Villegas waves to the crowd after winning the BMW Championship, the third tourney on the FedEx Cup trophy playoff series. Villegas is pushing for a format overall because despite a third and first in two of the events he still has no chance of catching Vijay Singh after the Fijian won the first two events.

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The PGA Tour season will end with a whimper instead of a bang after Vijay Singh all but clinched the FedEx Cup and a $US10 ($NZ15 million) bonus today (NZ time) at the BMW Championships with a 44th place finish.

After capturing the first two events of the playoff series, all the Fijian needs to do at East Lake Golf Club in three weeks is play four rounds to win the trophy and a monstrous payoff.

The series was designed to bring the season to a dramatic conclusion, however Colombia's Camilo Villegas, the hottest player on the Tour at the moment after he won the BMW championship today following a third place at the Deutsche Bank last week, said he felt it needed an overhaul.

"I just think it needs improvement and not because I cannot win," Villegas told reporters.

"I played great last week, yes, I played great this week.

"I have no clue what place I am, second, third maybe.

"You come in at 144, come in at 120... I don't think that's a good year.

"To have a chance to win it is just very, very unfair for the guys that have busted themselves all year, worked hard, played great.

"We've got a good example.

"The guy (Padraig Harrington) that has a great chance of being player of the year is not going to play the Tour Championship."

Ireland's Harrington the winner of the British Open and PGA championship and who had four other top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour, failed to qualify for the 30-player field in Atlanta, with the FedEx Cup counting just the results from its four events.

Harrington failed to qualify for the Tour championship after missing the cut at the Barclays and Deutsche Bank and finishing tied for 55th today.

"I think the whole idea is this is a four-week event," said Harrington.

"It has a little reflection of the year, but it's really a four-week event, and it's the guys that do the best in those four weeks who should be there.

"I think the system needs tweaking, but I don't think it needs tweaking to keep people in there.

"I think you need to have people missing out... That's what happens in a playoff."

-Reuters