Bad time for a bye week

Between the college football games on Saturday and another NFL Sunday, could you sense the excitement building for the Tour Championship this weekend?

Didn't think so.

Taking a one-week break after the first three events of the FedEx Cup playoffs and before the 30-player money grab/trophy chase at East Lake this weekend may have seemed like a good idea in theory. But it killed whatever modest momentum the playoff series had generated.

If there's goinig to be a break during the FedEx Cup playoffs, it needs to come after the first two events, not the third one. That may create practical scheduling problems but if the goal is to generate as much interest as possible in the playoffs, this isn't the way to do it.

This isn't the Super Bowl, much as the PGA Tour might like it to be.

When Tiger won the BMW Championship, he did what he does like no one else -- shouldered the PGA Tour into the weekend news cycle and video loop on a big football weekend. Tiger makes the world away from golf pay attention.

If he's in contention this week at East Lake -- a pretty good bet -- the interest meter will spike as it always does. First, though, it will require recapturing some of the attention that dissipated during the week off.

The good news is the PGA Tour keeps working to make the FedEx Cup playoffs better. Adjusting future weeks should be among the tweaks for next year, if possible.