CADDIE'S ROLE:New improved points system has produced more volatility in the play-offs.

THE FIRST of the much fabled FedEx play-offs of the season took off at the Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey, last week. What it all meant was the subject of much locker-room and caddie- shack chatter.

The play-off is an established denouement to any major sporting season in the USA. The main sports here - football, basketball and baseball - all have their end-of-season play-offs in search of the best team of the year.

The PGA tour felt that the golf season was lacking finality, an endgame to find the best player of the year. So the FedEx play-offs were devised and had their inaugural year last year without producing anything out of the ordinary. Tiger won.

Of course this year we have a sidelined Woods and a rejigged points system devised to give more weight to the performance of qualifying players in the four play-off events. The complaint last year was that those who had qualified for the first two of the four events could do little to improve their rankings to gain entry to the final two, which was where all the points were.

Ridgewood Country Club was a one-off venue set in the old world of golf on the east coast of the US. It is a classic, mature and elegant AW Tillinghast layout with a clever mix of long, tough par fours and shorter, risk-reward holes that tempt the long-hitting modern golfer into taking on punishing par fours.

Interesting then that such a new form of professional golf should have been tested on a course that was designed over 100 years ago.

Despite The Barclays marking the start of the end of the season, in golfing terms it really just felt like a normal event. There was some uncertainty for those at the lower end of the rankings as to where they were going this week. Boston or bust?

As caddies, most of us make our own travel arrangements. Many caddies have latched onto a website called priceline.com that allows you to bid for a hotel room by naming the lowest price you think it will accept.

The result last week was that the Hyatt Place hotel in Paramus looked as if it was playing host to a caddy convention.

Those of us in the top 120 made our plans for the Deutsche Bank Championship in Massachusetts. Others were hanging on to get a closer look at how this new points system was going to affect their FedEx rankings.

We got stuck in a group that was infected with bad putting. In these events you are paired with players of a similar ranking; we were all around the high 50s before the start of last week.

The greens defied the putting skills of each member of the group, and with the early leader posting an outrageous 62 it is no wonder that most players felt intimidated by the very low score on a seemingly difficult course.

Tim Clark made the cut on three under, holing two putts in the final two holes for birdies. Retief Goosen and the other member of our group, Peter Lonard, missed the cut by four shots. Some putt better than others on poa annua greens.

I handed the bag over to Retief early on Friday afternoon and he promptly packed up and headed home for the weekend. He parted with the uncertainty this new points system has introduced to the tour showdown very much in mind. "I'll see you on Wednesday in Boston, if we qualify for it," were his parting words.

The tour reward system is very top heavy. The top 15 is where most of the money is. There is little difference in prize money once you fall outside the top 25. Not so in this year's play-offs, where making the cut seems to be well rewarded.

Our playing partner Tim Clark finished 38th in The Barclays and moved up 20 spots in the rankings to 40th. Outside the play-offs you would normally have to win to make such a dramatic jump. Some argued that the rankings had been reduced to a game of hop-scotch.

Drama ensued as the first of the play-offs resulted in a play-off and the main protagonists, Vijay Singh and Sergio Garcia, going head to head for the title alongside the lesser-known Kevin Sutherland.

Singh birdied both play-off holes on the way to snaring the title. The Fijian matched Garcia's birdie on the first play-off hole (18th) while Sutherland was eliminated. The 45-year-old Singh then birdied the par-five 17th to close out the world number four Garcia.

The FedEx formulators must have been gratified by the proof there can be life in a golf tournament even without Tiger.

To top it all it was a dream finish to test out their new, improved points formula. Vijay moved up seven spots, Sergio 10 and Sutherland 57.

For those who missed the cut the slide was equally dramatic. Our other playing partner, Peter Lonard, dropped 25 places and Retief fell 24.

There is no room for major nostalgia in these play-offs either; Pádraig dropped 19 spots by missing the cut in New Jersey.

In this uncertain life on tour, where you are as good as your last performance, at least we know one thing for this week in Boston: if we miss the cut we definitely will not make the third play-off event in Missouri.

The other important lesson from last week is that despite the alarmingly low rounds of 62 and 64 carded by the early leaders, eight under par played off for the title. It's the play-offs. Stick in there if you can.