That's how the PGA Tour is billing this week's start of the 2007 season at the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Hawaii.

Thursday's first round in Kapalua marks the beginning of the new FedEx Cup schedule, a radically new format designed to give the PGA Tour its first season-ending playoffs and its first true season-long champion.

"I don't think it's unfair to suggest that it's the biggest change in the modern era from a competitive-structure standpoint," PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said in his 2006 season-ending news conference. "It's going to take a year or two for people to really get their arms around it. Players have got to be enthused about it."

The $10 million question (which is exactly how much the FedEx Cup champion will receive in deferred compensation) is how enthused the top players will be when the playoffs arrive in August.

"For a million bucks, I couldn't tell you what tournaments are in the FedEx Cup," 15-time PGA Tour winner Fred Couples said during a news conference at the Target World Challenge earlier this month. "I'm not knocking it. It's a nice thing."

Nice? That lukewarm assessment isn't exactly what Finchem wants from players he is depending on to whip up interest in this new era.

Other important questions loom, too. Will fans understand the complicated points standings?

Will the FedEx Cup gain prestige or meaning beyond anything but a late-season money grab?

Will Tiger Woods consistently commit to all four playoff events?

And news Saturday that he and wife, Elin, are expecting their first child this summer could make him think about altering his schedule.

Finchem is staking a major part of his legacy on the FedEx Cup significantly enhancing his product. The aim is to create more big events, pit the best players against each other more often and give the tour a more meaningful and definitive conclusion to the season.

This year's finish was so anticlimactic with Woods a lock as Player of the Year that Woods and Phil Mickelson didn't even play in the season-ending Tour Championship.

PGA Tour veteran Chris DiMarco believes Woods' commitment to the FedEx Cup will be key to the success of the FedEx playoffs.

"Is Tiger going to play the last six tournaments in a row?" DiMarco asked in his news conference at the Target World Challenge. "That's what we have to see. If he's going to play the last six tournaments in a row and our ratings go way up, then it's worth it. There's no doubt everybody knows out here where our bread is buttered. It's Tiger Woods."

Actually, the question is whether Woods will play six of the final seven events of the FedEx Cup season, an unusually busy run for him. The final seven events of 2007 feature a World Golf Championship, the PGA Championship and the four playoff events.

Designed after NASCAR's Nextel Cup point chase, the FedEx Cup will reward the top 70 tournament finishers (plus ties) at most tour events with qualifying points through 36 tournaments. That sets up the season-ending four-week run of playoffs that concludes with the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

The home stretch is now loaded with big events. There's the World Golf Championship-Bridgestone Aug. 2-5 and the PGA Championship Aug. 9-12, followed by the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro on Aug. 16-19, which is the last event for FedEx Cup qualifying. Then the four-week playoff run begins: The Barclays (Aug. 23-26), the Deutsche Bank Championship (Aug. 31-Sept. 3), the BMW Championship (Sept. 6-9) and the Tour Championship (Sept. 13-16).

That's six major events in a seven-week run.

"It's all new to us," Woods said at a Target World Challenge news conference. "It's more of a curiosity for all of us. We're all going to go through this new experience together. It will be interesting to see how the players handle it."

Tour Senior Vice President Ric Clarson says top players jeopardize their chances to win if they skip even one of the playoff events.

The top-performing player in the regular FedEx Cup schedule starts the playoffs like a No. 1 seed with 100,000 points, second place with 99,000. Points will be distributed all the way down to the 84,700 points awarded to the 144th and final player to qualify.

The four-playoff tournaments will award 50,000 points per event with 9,000 to the winners of each of the first three and 10,300 to the Tour Championship winner. The fields will be cut from 144 to 120 to 70 to 30 as the playoffs progress.

After the FedEx Cup is awarded, a separate Fall Finish schedule will feature seven lesser events to determine final standings from 31st to 125th on the money list.

The tour plugged the last five seasons into a model to evaluate how the FedEx Cup would have played out in those years. Results from The Players Championship, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and Tour Championship were used as the four-playoff events.

Clarson said Vijay Singh jumped from a playoff start at 13th in points in the 2004 model to win the FedEx Cup. He was the lowest "seeded" player to win in that five-year model. Jim Furyk would have won it this year after starting second behind Woods.

"This will be a generational change," Clarson said. "This is not going to be: Turn on the switch and everybody gets it from the start. This makes every game, every event, every weekend more important."

Finchem's legacy depends on it working that way.