On the television screen in front of the room, Steve Sands of the Golf Channel was trying his level best to explain the FedEx Cup points system to a legion of flummoxed viewers. He scribbled scenarios on a dry-erase board. Every few minutes, Sands, drafted into duty by NBC Sports, tried to update the audience with the permutations by scribbling away the latest developments involving relevant guys on the course.

He used colored pens, mind you, but he might as well have used a slide rule or abacus, for all the absorption that was going on. Like the majority of the hacks in the media center, I guess NBC didn't have anybody on staff who understood it, either.

"You need a team from MIT to do the announcing," NBC's Johnny Miller said at one point ...