Philadelphia, PA (My Sportsbook) - Tough week for a column, huh?

For the first time in recent memory, the PGA Tour actually took a week off from action. Last week, Broadway went dark and it seems clear that the PGA Tour was in a bind.

The No. 1 goal of the PGA Tour is to make money. The best way to do that is get people to go see/watch the stars, so indirectly, the tour needed to get Tiger Woods on the golf course.

With the advent of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, the tour's schedule became very difficult come mid-August. There's the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, then the PGA Championship. The tour staged one more tournament, then the four Playoff events began.

If the intention was to get Woods into the field as much as possible, the idea of a break in the schedule is wise. He's just not going to play six events in seven weeks. Sorry, Tiger's an independent contractor, doesn't need the cash and just won't do it.

So a break was needed, not just for Woods, but for everyone. Backs tighten, kids start school and your mind just wanders. A hiatus is smart, but was last week the proper week?

My hunch is no.

You do lose some momentum that the Playoffs generate by taking off this week. Tiger came off a massive victory at the BMW Championship and the end of NBC's broadcast focused on the galactic mistake by Brandt Snedeker that cost him a spot in the Tour Championship.

Mathematical scenarios were presented, maybe by John Nash, maybe not. We learned that if you finished in the top five in FedEx Cup points heading into the Tour Championship, fate was in your hands. Win the Tour Championship, you win the FedEx Cup.

We learned the various cosmic occurrences needed to win the FedEx Cup for those in other positions outside the top five. We were armed and ready to go and...

We wait.

It was only a week, but everything the tour had going for it, was lost. Granted, there's no way to assume a huge Tiger victory when making the schedule, but no matter what, that bump the tour got from the BMW Championship is gone.

If we agree there's a need for some down time, where? Doesn't a break after the second Playoff event make sense? Be honest here, the top pros will play the WGC and PGA, then it's a crapshoot. Why not give them the option of two weeks on, week off, two weeks on, week off, two weeks on?

This schedule seems to benefit everyone involved in the Playoffs. The second tournament is the Deutsche Bank Championship. That event takes advantage of the Labor Day holiday in the U.S. and finishes on Monday. So now we have an event ending on Monday and no one has a short week before the next championship. Go home, take a load off and come back in seven days.

In this scenario, you can build some momentum over the first two tourneys and yes, you'll lose something between weeks two and three. But with only one tournament to go, you still get a bump because you go right from the third playoff event to what is essentially the championship.

(Also, if a planned week off happens in between weeks two and three, Woods and some other guys who've skipped week one in the past, will be less likely to do that again.)

For us in the media, a week off won't kill anyone. It's a good idea, but it could work even better by taking the time one week earlier. The Playoffs are a constant work in progress and with some more tweaking in timing, it'll get righted sooner rather than later.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

- The LPGA Tour took advantage of the PGA Tour's week off with the Samsung World Championship. Na Yeon Choi won with a birdie at the last. The big thing was that they played at Torrey Pines. The tour definitely needs more love from storied venues and it appears it's working. The Women's British Open plays some of the courses in the British Open rota and now Torrey Pines for a year. Better clubs will give the LPGA some appeal to see how women do on the same places as men.

- Nothing else really happened. Sorry.

- Tiger wins the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup.

- Movie moment - Isn't it amazing when some small moments from film come up in your everyday life? On Saturday, I attended a beautiful outdoor wedding for my closest friend from home's little brother. It was spectacular, an outside event with a band. So the first thought that went into my head was to refer to another buddy that I grew up with as "the Catalina Wine Mixer." It's from "Step Brothers," but he knew what I was saying and took a step further with the little bad word that goes with it. God Bless film and God Bless the "Catalina Wine Mixer."