Tiger Woods is one of several players who'd like to see the PGA Tour season shortened. (Stephen Morton / Associated Press) On the surface, it appears as if everything is coming up roses for PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem. So far, 2005 is shaping up as a banner year for the PGA, just in time for Finchem to negotiate a new TV deal. The game's two biggest draws ?Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson ?have each already won twice. Mickelson was simply electric in his two wins, but couldn't hold off Tiger in a head-to-head showdown at Doral. Of the first 10 tournaments (not counting the Chrysler Classic, given that the top players in the world were at Match Play that week) on the schedule, only three were won by a player without a major championship on his resume. And two of those were won by players (Stuart Appleby and Padraig Harrington) right in the thick of the "best player never to win a major" debate. But a pair of issues ?appearance fees and schedule length ?threaten to divide the Tour's rank-and-file players from its superstars and make putting together a deal for 2006 a whole lot more difficult than sitting back and waiting for the networks to show up with a wheelbarrow full of money. Poll The revelation that four players ?Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia and Harrington ?reportedly raked in somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 apiece for a one-day corporate outing the week of the Ford Championship at Doral was followed in short succession by the emergence of a letter from IMG that directly challenged the PGA Tour's long-standing policy against appearance fees. The prospect of, say, Jim Furyk receiving $100,000 to enter the Greater Hartford Open while a journeyman gets nothing more than the keys to a courtesy car is enough to turn your average player the same shade as the jacket they hand out to the Masters champion. It also raises legitimate concerns that the meteoric growth purses have undergone in recent years will come to a halt as sponsors decide to use that money to stack their field with superstars. But what probably gets that journeyman player really fired up is Woods and Mickelson advocating that the PGA Tour cut back on the 48 events currently on the schedule ?a topic that was revisited during the annual players' meetings at The Players Championship. "For the future and growth and health of our tour, we're too strung out," Woods said last Wednesday at TPC Sawgrass. "What other sport plays 10 months? And that includes some weeks with two tournaments." Fewer tournaments wouldn't impact Tiger's checking account in the slightest. But for the player who needs to play 31 times a year just to keep his Tour card, fewer events could make it a much more difficult task. And some of those players, like former PGA Tour board member Tom Pernice Jr., think Tiger should be playing more ... not less. "We have 43 title sponsors, but Tiger thinks we have 18," Pernice said earlier this year ... before his little feud with Woods escalated to the point where Pernice requested that Tiger's driver be tested to see if it was violating PGA Tour rules. "Right now, Vijay is doing more for the PGA Tour than anybody. Tiger has done a lot for us out there, but I think it's time for Tiger to step up and play some more events." While the stars fuel interest in the sport, they make up a small percentage of the PGA Tour's membership. So what's a commissioner to do? Here are a few suggestions. Crack down hard on appearance fee controversy. When Woods went pro back in 1996, nine players cracked $1,000,000 in winnings. Last year, there were 77 million dollar men on the PGA Tour. Bottom line, there's no need for sponsors to sweeten the pot with appearance money. Shorten the season, slightly. The general public's interest in the PGA Tour begins to wane after the PGA Championship, yet there will be 14 events after the season's final major. There's really no point in going head-to-head with football for more than two months. Five weeks of getting crushed by the NFL in the Nielsen ratings should be sufficient. Take a page from the LPGA. The ladies face a fine if they don't play every tournament on the schedule in a four-year period. That isn't practical on the PGA Tour, given how steep the fine would have to be to get Tiger to notice. So simply make it a condition of keeping your Tour card. Those are the basic, common-sense, garden-variety solutions. Now, in addition, I'd like to propose something a little less mainstream. Spread out the final three major championships. Three months pass between the start of the PGA Tour season and the Masters. Once the green jacket is handed out, it's another two months until the U.S. Open. At that point, you'd better not blink, or you'll miss a Grand Slam event. In a two-month whirlwind, the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship all crown their champions. As a result, most of the top players play sparingly on the PGA Tour as they prepare for the major championships. Woods played just once last year between the U.S. and British Opens, and once again between the British and the PGA. And as hard as it is to believe, that was a positively hectic schedule compared to Mickelson. Lefty played just three times on the PGA Tour during that two-month span ?all in major championships. That sort of schedule makes sense if there are just three or four tournaments between major championships, as is currently the case. But if there were six or seven, would Woods or Mickelson feel comfortable with just one tuneup tournament heading into a Grand Slam? Probably not. Which would mean the stars would likely start showing up at some of those "dog days of summer" tourneys they've traditionally skipped in the past. In addition, moving the PGA Championship into September would help maintain interest in the Tour later into the season. As a result, fewer tournaments would have to be cut from the back end of the schedule, which would keep the rank-and-file happy. Granted, this kind of tinkering may very well be next to impossible, if only because of the sheer number of acronyms ?PGA Tour, USGA, R&A, PGA of America ?involved. But with the networks rumbling about the amount of money they're losing on the PGA and the superstars and journeymen clearly on a different page, it's a solution worth considering. Todd Behrendt is a senior editor for FOXSports.com.