HONOLULU, Hawaii – It’s not often that PGA Tour players agree on anything. Usually, you can’t get two of them both standing under an umbrella to agree if it’s raining – that’s just a sun shower, one will say. But when it comes to the topic of changing the format of the Tour Championship, it’s hard to find any supporters of the current Starting Strokes model that was implemented in 2019.
Reigning FedEx Cup champion Scottie Scheffler called it “silly,” Keegan Bradley called it “clunky” and “strange,” while Patrick Cantlay, the 2022 champion of the Tour’s season-long competition, and Justin Thomas, who won it in 2017, both have voiced their distaste at the current model.
“I’m a massive proponent of something different,” Thomas said.
What that new model should look like is being debated among Tour officials and TV and sponsorship executives. Both Thomas and Maverick McNealy, who are members of the Tour’s Player Advisory Council, hadn’t heard of the topic until a reporter asked them for comment on an Athletic story that cited anonymous sources. Three player directors on the Tour policy board – Cantlay, Peter Malnati and Adam Scott – confirmed that discussions are underway to reimagine the FedEx Cup Playoffs and Tour Championship. The Tour’s broadcast partner, NBC, is pressing hard to implement changes this year, though none of the player directors seemed convinced a change would happen that quickly.
Lots of opinions but few solid answers for what the Tour Championship should become.
“I don’t think I like a bracket,” Thomas said.
And of the current system, he added, “In my opinion, you can’t give a PGA Tour win when you’re not starting at the same score.”
Tony Finau, who has been a regular at East Lake, joined board member Adam Scott in expressing his opposition to the Tour Championship being contested at match play (or match play medal, which has been proposed).
“We don’t play one match-play event during the regular season and to have us play match play seems awkward if we play stroke play the whole season,” he argued.
Xander Schauffele, who has turned East Lake into his personal ATM in recent years, may have been the kindest in his assessment.
“I try not to pick on things when I don’t have a solution,” Schauffele said before conceding that “compared to before I don’t know if it’s a lot better than it used to be.”
When Jay Monahan says everything is on the table that could include the venue in hot-and-steamy Atlanta, which often produces weather delays. While presenting sponsors Southern Company and Coca-Cola are committed to keeping the Tour Championship at East Lake, the site of the season finale since 2005, Thomas and others wouldn’t mind moving the event around.
“I think that would be great,” he said.
“Take it to some iconic courses,” Horschel added.
And another player noted, “I’m pretty sure they sell Coke outside of Atlanta. I don’t think the course has produced enough drama.”
And that’s really the bottom-line objective. As in the movie “Gladiator,” fans – both on-site and watching from afar – need to answer Maximus’s question, “Are you not entertained?” with a resounding “Yes!”
“It comes down to whatever is going to be the most engaging for the fan,” said Maverick McNealy, a member of the PAC. “You have to reward season-long performance but there’s probably an opportunity to make something more exciting at the end.”
“If we’re really going to create a true playoff system we should create a true playoff system,” Horschel said.
What a novel idea. With so much fervent player support for change, this is low-hanging fruit for the Tour to shake up the Tour Championship format again. There’s no need to revert back to NBC’s Steve Sands and his whiteboard but there should be a way to infuse some drama and excitement to the culmination of the FedEx Cup. That, too, everyone can agree upon but the question is how to proceed.
Perhaps Morikawa offered the most sensible approach to the forthcoming change.
“Whatever it is, you just got to live with it,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: PGA Tour players want Tour Championship changed
