By Bob Harig
Archive

"We have too long of a season. We have an 11-month season and that's too long. There's no other sport that you can say plays 11 months of a year ... [With a shorter season], you would get a better crop of events. I think it would be great for golf, world golf as well, because some guys would play other parts of the world in the off time when we are not playing here.'' -- Tiger Woods, March 2005.

"Most of the top players throughout history have averaged 18 to 22 events a year and we seem to have 44-plus events. So on a percentage scale we are less than 50 percent; the top players play less than half of the events. If we cut our schedule back to 32 events, now we are playing in two-thirds or three-quarters of events. I think that would be an easier sell for television and our sponsors.'' -- Phil Mickelson, March 2005

Now that we are in the midst of a debate on the PGA Tour as to whether Q-school should be dropped and seasons should overlap the calendar year, it is interesting to recall what the game's two biggest stars were advocating several years ago when the idea of the FedEx Cup was being floated.

Both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were clearly in favor of a plan that would end the season earlier, get out of the way of football, and allow players to take time off or play overseas.

So much for that.

The idea of an offseason never really materialized, and if the plan that the PGA Tour is now proposing goes through, it will remain up to the players to figure out when is best to take time off -- regardless of what the schedules says.

Somewhat lost in the debate about shuttering Q-school as we now know it and adopting a plan that would have a three-tournament series of events on the Nationwide Tour to determine PGA Tour status is the idea that the new tour season will begin soon after the old one ends.

If the plan that was presented to the players last week in San Diego is ratified by the PGA Tour's policy board, the 2014 season would actually begin just a few weeks after the 2013 Tour Championship. The Frys.com Open in California would likely be the launching point, with the current Fall Series events becoming part of the start to the new year as opposed to the end of the old one.

That doesn't exactly solve the football dilemma, does it? The Fall Series events are broadcast on cable, meaning the purses are less and the television fees are smaller. They have mostly been viewed as a place to provide playing opportunities for those still trying to keep their tour cards or improve their position on the money list or world rankings. The big names, typically, stay away.

Going forward, these tournaments would offer FedEx Cup points. In theory, a victory would mean a Masters invite (Augusta National can do as it pleases in this regard). Instead of simply being seen as a last chance, they would actually provide an opportunity to get a head start.

There has been much understandable angst over the demise of the current Q-school format. Under the new plan, Q-school would only provide access to the Nationwide Tour, from which all 50 PGA Tour qualifying spots would come. The romance of making it through the various stages of Q-school and the brutal six-day tournament onto the PGA Tour would be gone. And that is a shame.

But the other aspects of the entire plan have some interesting benefits.

• The regular season would end after the Wyndham Championship. You know then if you're going to the playoffs or to the Nationwide Tour series of events to keep your card. Simple, line-in-the-sand stuff. It has always been awkward to have the playoff series ... and then several more tournaments afterward that still count for that season. It has been said that it's like playing a month of baseball games after the World Series to determine who finishes in third place.

• The Malaysia event and HSBC Champions in China would become official events. Now, they offer world ranking points, but the prize money is not included and a win is not considered official if you are a tour member. That too is awkward. Now those tournaments will have some added value.

• There will be far less scrutiny over the lack of buzz to the start of the season in Hawaii. That's because the new season will have already begun. There might not be much buzz in California, either, starting a new year just a few weeks after the previous one has ended. But this scenario has become inevitable. Hawaii is not a big kickoff to the year because players make their own offseasons. This is simply an acknowledgement of the situation. And perhaps a reason for Kapalua to consider a format change by adding more players.

If this plan does go through -- and it's expected to be voted on by the policy board next month -- there will be some interesting fallout. Q-school will remain a hot button topic. It is difficult to say if those former Fall Series events gain in stature or remain mostly an afterthought. Will the Masters add spots to the field?

One thing is certain: The season won't get any shorter, as Tiger and Phil had long ago hoped.

There are many perks to winning a major championship, and Ben Curtis is taking advantage this year. The 2003 British Open champion finds himself only partially exempt on the PGA Tour this year because he finished outside of the top 125 money winners in 2011. But he's eligible to take up European Tour membership because winning the Open gives you a 10-year exemption.

Curtis is taking advantage. One of just three Americans in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship field last week (Tiger Woods and Todd Hamilton were the others), Curtis tied for 48th. He is scheduled to play this week's Qatar Masters and next week's Dubai Desert Classic.

While Curtis expects to get into his share of events on the PGA Tour, he indicated he would attempt to play the required 13 European events to be a full tour member and qualify for the Race to Dubai.

Curtis, who has three PGA Tour victories, made the cut in just 10 of 23 events last year to finish 149th on the money list.

Bob Harig covers golf for ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.