Rory McIlroy may have stirred up a tempest in a teapot earlier this week at the Tour Championship when he commented on what the absence of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson signified. (They’re getting older, duh).
The tournament’s executive director, Tom Clark, was pleased to report that no Tiger, specifically, didn’t mean no gallery.
“Ticket wise, in the past not having Tiger was a pretty big dip. This year it has been considerably less,” Clark said. He said young attractions like Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler, along with such a sizable contingent of players with Georgia connections helped offset the lack of the game’s two most-recognizable players.
Attendance, while down slightly in the first two rounds from a year ago, was up three percent Saturday, Clark said. He anticipated a similar increase in Sunday’s numbers.
Looking ahead, Clark said one of the biggest challenges facing the Tour Championship is the lack of parking around East Lake. “Even our largest sponsors — a lot of them — park at Turner Field (the satellite lot). When you’re in the middle of a neighborhood, it makes it difficult. We’re going to make a few more changes next year, come up with ways that allow us to get more creative in here with cars.”
As for the FedEx Cup and the playoff system leading to East Lake, he didn’t see the need for much more tinkering.
“I think we’ve tweaked the event, tweaked the scoring,” Clark said. “It’s really about the players, who’s competing. And we really do get a combination of the hottest players and the best players.”
Kirk shaken but not stirred: It was only a 3-foot putt to finish a long week at the Tour Championship, but to Milton's Chris Kirk it felt like 300. "My whole body was shaking on that left-edge 3-footer," he confessed. With good reason. Make it and he finishes second in the FedEx Cup points. Miss and he slips to third. In bonus money, that's a million-dollar difference. He made it and the ultimate consolation prize, a $3 million bonus, was his. "I would have loved to have won the tournament and taken it all," Kirk said, "but it's a lot more pressure than I'm used to being under in my first four years on Tour. … So to know that I can perform when I'm feeling like that is a huge confidence boost for me."
Etc.: Finishing in a tie for second with Rory McIlroy, Jim Furyk was a runner-up for a fourth time this season, and for a seventh time in his past three years. He was hardly remorseful. "Billy (Horschel) was out ahead, I was trying to chase him down all day, I just couldn't make enough birdies." His move from seventh for fourth in the FedEx Cup standings this week earned him an extra $800,000 in bonus money. … Gary Woodland came to East Lake last (29th) in FedEx Cup points in this field. With rounds of 63-67 over the weekend to finish tied for ninth in the Tour Championship, he moved up to 22nd. There's a cool $183,000 difference in bonus money between those two spots. … It was apt that at the age of 27, Horschel became the youngest-ever Fed Ex Cup winner (surpassing the then 29-year-old Bill Haas). This was the youngest field in the history of the event, average age 31.
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