Professional golf’s search for innovative ideas to prop up interest in the PGA Tour long after the final putt has dropped at the PGA Championship in August — the fourth and final major of the year — has produced the FedEx Championship.

Certainly the FedEx Cup has captured the rapt attention of the touring pros with its $10 million pot of gold for the winner.

The big question for the tour and FedEx Cup is whether fans will embrace a format that gradually reduces the number of contestants, particularly if Tiger, Phil and Ernie are among those being eliminated? Still, the tournament is unusual and the money involved is larger than the budgets of some Third World countries.

But is the excitement generated by this venue going to catch on or will it gradually wear off?

The PGA wouldn’t mind seeing the FedEx Cup/Tour Championship evolve into a fifth major to keep people watching golf on television when chilly winds whip across the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

But the FedEx isn’t the first try at finding a Fifth Major. At one point the Tournament Players Championship was being touted as one. But those echoes reverberated only a few years. While the TPC truly is an exceptional, prestigious event, a Billy Bob Bubba might say “It ain’t no Masters.”

Some thought the Memorial had the makings of a major: A premier golf course and the name Jack Nicklaus made it a certainty. But no great groundswell has built.

The limited field Tour Championship also created visions of an end-of-season cap capable of holding its own with the majors, but it proved just another interesting experiment until the FedEx Cup came along. Now the top 30 players will advance to the Tour Championship and the $10 million prize for the winner.

There will be six or seven more tournaments on the PGA Tour’s fall schedule after that so that players can jockey for places on the money list or pick up a win. But those tournaments likely won’t draw many big names. Most of the field will be those trying to hang onto their tour cards.

One of the reasons that FedEx/Tour Championship won’t jostle itself into a Big Five of the majors is history and tradition.

It can be argued that only the Masters, an invitational get-together for friends of Bobby Jones in 1934, didn’t start as a full-blown major. It got there because of the beloved Jones, easily the greatest amateur of all time and perhaps even the greatest player ever. The press turned his tournament into something special. Augusta National is glorious and the Masters is arguably the best run tournament of them all. But it was the legend of Jones and all the stories surrounding those first few tournaments that elevated it.

As for the others, well, the U.S. Open is, after all, the nation’s golf championship and the British Open — known simply as The Open abroad — is the oldest of the majors. The PGA was the championship of the professionals. Golf purists have resisted the idea of a Fifth Major. After all, Bobby Jones won four tournaments in his Grand Slam or “impregnable quadrilateral” in 1930. Hogan and Tiger won three majors in a single season. Nicklaus came within a few strokes of winning all four one year. The Masters, U.S. and British opens and PGA Championship have been the yardstick for measuring greatness.

Truly, there is only one other event that meets the criteria for a major today: Extraordinary popularity and visibility that fills stadium seats with fans and causes people to sit for hours watching a telecast. It also drips with history and glamour. It’s the Ryder Cup.

With the rest of Europe added to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Americans no longer routinely win. The competition, fueled in part by nationalism and individual pride, is fierce. The pressure, especially in the close matches on the final day, is intense. There is a strong sense of tradition and history, and. The FedEx Cup/Tour Championship may have all the loot, but it isn’t the Masters, the U.S. or British Open or PGA Championship. It certainly isn’t the gripping drama known as the Ryder Cup. The FedEx Cup will be successful. But money can’t buy tradition.



City teams

All four teams have been qualified for the Joplin Globe City Championship, which opens May 12 at Schifferdecker Municipal Golf Course.

The unique 72-hole format will have the second round on May 13 at Twin Hills Golf and Country Club, followed by Loma Linda Country Club on May 19 and by Briarbrook Country Club on May 20. Each team consists of 12 players. They will compete for individual and team honors. Members of the teams and alternates follow:

JOPLIN GOLF CLUB

Mark Riley, Jeff Murphy, Paul Ashe, Riley Snyder, Tyler Smith, Chad Walker, Andy Franklin, Tony Logan, Charlie Weems, Kendall Stanton, George Stockam, Emmitt Girton. Alternates: Scott Lawrence, Chad Beydler, Leonard Doss.

LOMA LINDA

Bill Curry, Mike Maier, Dave Tourtelot, Dave Pawlus, Mark Bruder, Shawn Plattner, Art Dahms, Dan Tourtelot, Don Brister, Robert Jarnigan, Michael Dawson, Michael Arrowood. Alternates: Jeff Bieber, Homer Wilson.

TWIN HILLS

Chris Mitchell, Brian Black, Todd Pefferman, Jeremy Henderson, Randy Sohosky, Chris Patterson, Bobby McKay, Travis Sainsbury, Scott Miller, Kevin Walker, Jimmy Weaver, Ashley Roberson. Alternates: Evan Griffin, Greg Crawford, Shane Cowger, Mike Leone.

BRIARBROOK

Lee Larimore, Tim Old, Danny Endicott, Chad Lind, Al Runge, David Eddy, Doug Harvey, Jim Lucas, Steve McKenzie, Les Taylor, Phil Fowler, Roger Bruder. Alternates: Frank Jacobs and Andy Pochik.



Address correspondence to Clair Goodwin, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, Mo. 64802.