When the Super Bowl finishes each year, it’s always a bit nostalgic. Football season, even if you aren’t a hardcore NFL or college fan, marks an exciting stretch of the year, and when it goes away we instantly miss it.

It always gets me thinking about what our own sport could do to be a little more like football.

I was talking with some buddies of mine recently about the biggest hurdle each sport faces. Baseball has been facing a crisis of short-term attention spans for years, with its biggest issue simply being the length of the season and how much each game actually matters.

Basketball has been facing an identity crisis with players moving so much that it’s tough for fans to feel totally engaged with their own organization. Adding playoff games have made the overall regular season less impactful (the NBA feels more and more like the MLB with each decision to expand).

College football faces an issue where the best part of the year is the regular season and often not the bowl and playoff schedules. The biggest games typically happen in October and November, and more often than not, we are left with a final game that looks more like Georgia-TCU than Georgia-Alabama.

So what does all this have to do with golf?

Last week’s Genesis Invitational was the final event of the West Coast swing, and for any golf fan that actually pays attention to this stuff, it marks the end of the best part of the golf season. The moment the PGA Tour leaves the West Coast, the regular season loses juice. The Florida courses don’t hold a candle to Pebble Beach and Riviera. East Coast time zones make primetime viewing nonexistent. And frankly, the events just aren’t as good.

So here’s a proposal. Considering that the PGA Tour ends the year in August, why not change things around and make this part of the year the crescendo to the season? Why not close the FedEx Cup at the Players?

I’ve long thought that the West Coast swing should be more important. Designated events help, but this part of the year always feels cooler. Golf is back, and as most of us sit around fireplaces with dormant grass dominating our own clubs, the PGA Tour is out in sunny spots with short sleeves and energized players. Plus, it all happens at a dead point in the wider sports calendar between the Super Bowl and March Madness.

Just as I’ve never understood why the NBA and NHL schedule their playoffs at the same time (couldn’t the NHL push the season back five to six weeks and own the latter part of the summer, when the NBA is all but over, the MLB is still in the doldrums of the July, and football hasn’t ramped up yet?), I’ve never understood why this part of the year is not the prime portion for the golf overlords.

If I were LIV Golf, I wouldn’t start the year right now. I’d end it right now. Wraparound seasons happen in every sport outside of baseball, so why not use this dead zone in the year to your advantage?

Just like the week off between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl, this is when sports fans (and gamblers) are looking for ways to spend their time and money. They’re itching for a sport and something of interest.

I was thinking about my favorite non-majors of the year. My ranking looks something like this:

  1. Riv
  2. Waste Management
  3. Players
  4. Kapalua
  5. Bay Hill

What do all these events have in common? They’re all played before the middle of March. There are 23 more non-major PGA Tour events left in the season following the Players. Twenty-three! And most of those tournaments have become relatively forgettable as the Tour introduces elevated events and the non-elevated suffer.

My point here is that the best stretch of pro golf—the most enjoyable, entertaining part of the year—happens over those first four months. When you include the events I mentioned above and toss in the Masters, you’re talking about a lot of must-watch golf.

So think of what these weeks could become if you added the intrigue of the FedEx Cup concluding in just a few weeks. I think it’s fair to say that the PGA Tour’s goal of the FedEx Cup feeling like a major championship, at least to golf fans, has failed. I commend the Tour for messing with the format and scoring to try and make it feel important, but it’s not clicking. And it never will in August, when the last major concluded six weeks prior and everyone’s attention has moved on to other sports.

But to reach the finale at this time of year? I think it would work. I think it would be well received and would allow the PGA Tour to own the next three to four weeks in sports.

This piece originally appeared in The Fried Egg newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.