Frankly, I have no issue with the idea of concluding the Tour season with some sort of fanfare but the idea in having such a socialistic bent with 144 players starting form scratch clearly tells me that Finchem is more interested in taking care of the mid-to-high level journeyman tour pro who clearly is "banking" (no pun intended) on getting hot for a very short time and claiming the big dough at the end.
How bout the Tour make the regular season (the build-up tournaments) a bit more interesting but knocking down those eligible for the event at the end to no more than 75 players or a number that makes some sort of sense.
The Tour is following the model of the NBA and NHL playoffs. Regular season games are in essence meaningless -- you simply play for the one extra home game in the playoffs unless you are sooooo bad as to not make the playoffs (just ask the Rangers until recently and now the Knicks.
I don't see how golf can compete against football (collegiate or pro) when September rolls around. The Ryder Cup is the single lone exception I can name. Candidly, if Phil takes a powder on the end of the year as he has done -- and if Tiger already has won one or two majors -- I don't see the extra $$ being all that credible since these two dudes already can open their own banks. The foreign players may also balk (e.g. Els, etc, etc) because they may opt to wound down their seasons and have little appetite for that kind of continuous event schedule.
Jerry -- Finchem works for the journeyman pro -- the people who push the pedal in terms of ticket sales had better start to put pressure on the people running their show. The more I see what goes on -- Norman was way ahead of his time.