The US PGA Tour unveiled the outline for a radical overhaul of its calendar yesterday, including a shorter season and some badly needed credibility for the season-ending Tour Championship.

Under pressure from advertisers to bolster faltering late-season television ratings, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem revealed his blueprint for the future during his State of Tour address on the eve of this year's season finale which begins at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia, today.

Starting in 2007, the PGA Tour calendar will be centred around the FedEx Cup, a points-based competition that will lead into a late summer play-off and culminate with the Tour Championship in September. The season finale could offer a purse of $10 million.

"There is one pressing need to help us compete and that is the need to define our season," said Finchem. "We have a long season, a very long season and in that season there are tournaments that have more impact than others.

"The Tour Championship was created to define that season but it is so far into the football season and, with the varying strength of our tournaments leading up to it, we haven't been able to get the kind of strength we see with other sports at the end of a season.

"Really we're the only sport that doesn't have a stronger finish than our regular season and a play-off system. We're creating a real season, which would include a year-long competition and a dramatic finish."

While many details have yet to be finalised, the framework for Finchem's ambitious plan is in place.

From January into August players would earn points at every tournament that would provide the seeding basis for a blockbuster play-off built around three events.

Finchem said it had not yet been decided how many players would qualify or which tournaments would make up the play-off roster but confirmed they would be staged in major markets. The Barclays Classic in New York, the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston and the Western Open in Chicago would probably be the first-choice venues.

The format for the Tour Championship would remain the same with an elite 30-player field qualifying.

The Tour Championship would be followed by six or seven official money events that would be marketed as "Quest for the Card" while also giving players an opportunity to qualify for the next season's FedEx Cup.

"When we talk about the year-long competition, we're talking about a competition that would run from January to September that would be based on a points structure to be determined where every week would count," said Finchem.

"It would be a system where the fans would be engaged in what was happening each week, and it would end with a multi-week championship series, our version of the play-off system.

"What is fundamental about this series, the points system along with the championship series, are two things.

"The players need to play to position themselves in a seeding position for the championship series, and the championship series will then be structured on points. "

Earlier this season Tiger Woods expressed his concerns about the ever-increasing schedule. "We have an 11-month season, and that's too long," Woods said. "There's no other sport that plays 11 months of the year. I think we should end with Labour Day (the first Monday in September). How can we compete against football? It's not going to happen."

The Tour Championship, being staged this week in Atlanta, has lost some of its appeal in recent years with the money list and player-of-the-year titles often already decided. "Changing the format is a great idea, having a new product is a great idea, and ending in a play-off is a great idea," said Davis Love, one of four player directors on the Tour's policy board.

"We want a hotly-contested end of the season that grabs everyone's attention and people really want to watch."

Only the PGA Tour's top-30 earners received invitations to tee up at East Lake today, the home course of golf legend Bobby Jones, with Padraig Harrington eager to finish the season on a high note.

However, world number three Phil Mickelson will not be among them, the PGA champion having found little motivation to extend his season by one more week. Vijay Singh, who has missed the cut at his last two events, and number four and defending champion Retief Goosen will be part of the marquee line-up in Georgia.

"You still know you're going to have to play like hell to win," said Goosen. "It's the best 29, 30 players of the year playing here this week. You have a few guys to worry about, but in general, you know you're going to have some tough competition out there."