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Finchem addresses Mickelson's W/D

September 05, 2007

Golf Digest's Bob Carney sat in on Tim Finchem's interview at the BMW Championship today, where the PGA Tour Commissioner was grilled about Phil Mickelson's withdrawal from this week's FedEx Cup playoffs event, as well as other gripes about the playoffs format. Check out Carney's take in our Editor's blog.

Q: When this thing was pitched to you, the idea that the schedule was going to be so bunched, did you express reservations about your ability to play that many in a row?

Tiger Woods: We all did. We all didn't think it was in the best interest for us as players to play that much. We normally don't play that much, especially towards the end of the year. Most of the guys usually shut it down post-PGA, and maybe the only time you start playing a lot is maybe trying to get ready for the Ryder Cup.

__Q:__Should the tour maybe have listened a little bit more to you guys instead of scheduling the tournaments the way they are, especially going into next year when you have the Ryder Cup right after that?

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Tiger:__ Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens. It's a lot of golf for a lot of guys. These are all big events. It's not like these are small events. You have World Golf Championships, followed by a major, and then you have these four events, and then you have The Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup. It's a bunch of big events. It's not like you have events where most of the guys--like at Kapalua--take it easy out there and go have fun at night, and if they play good golf, great. That's not the case.