KAPALUA, Hawaii – PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan keeps insisting that everything is on the table. Apparently, that includes the format of the Tour Championship – possibly as soon as this year. The Athletic first reported on Friday morning that the Tour is in “advanced discussions to revamp the Tour Championship format into a bracket-style event.” East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta has been the permanent home of the Tour Championship, the culminating event of the playoffs for the FedEx Cup, since 2005, and the Tour is committed to keeping the event there but sources say it could rotate to other venues too. Golfweek has learned from sources that the changes also could include medal match-play. Adam Scott, one of the Tour’s player directors, said he is wary of straying too far from a traditional format. “I’m pretty much open-minded to explore anything but I’m unsure about that,” he said of the medal match-play format that NBC/Golf Channel has some experience broadcasting at the St. Andrews Links Collegiate. “It’s hard to see where match play fits into pro golf. We play the whole season one way and then have the final week be head-to-head match play, I mean, we can have a look at it, but you’d have to kind of sell me on that just a little more.” Scott said that winning the Tour Championship used to be a prestigious achievement in its own right but its stature has been diminished as the FedEx Cup has become the primary prize. He envisions a scenario where both titles could carry significant prestige again. “It’s just my point of view that the Tour Championship has been a legacy-type event and that’s kind of been lost in the FedEx Cup,” Scott said. “It went from two tournaments, two trophies in that one week to now just one trophy and I understand why, because it was getting confusing, but there seems to be a feeling like it’ll be nice to kind of reestablish the Tour Championship as that kind of legacy-type event.”
The FedEx Cup playoff structure has been tweaked several times since its inception in 2007. Scottie Scheffler, the reigning FedEx Cup champion, took a shot at the current model in August ahead of the Tour Championship, calling it “silly.”
“You can’t call it a season-long race and have it come down to one tournament,” Scheffler said. “Hypothetically we get to East Lake and my neck flares up and it doesn’t heal the way it did at the Players, I finish 30th in the FedEx Cup because I had to withdraw from the last tournament? Is that really the season-long race? No. It is what it is.” Scott and two of his fellow player directors on the Tour board — Patrick Cantlay and Peter Malnati — as well as Tour veterans Keegan Bradley and Collin Morikawa said they would be in favor of a change to the starting-stroke model, the current format in use since 2019, which handicaps the field and gave Scheffler a start in the 72-hole event at 10 under, two strokes better than his closest competitor and as many as 10 strokes ahead of the 30th-ranked player to make the field. “Like I’ve said before, I’m not a big fan of the staggered start. If there’s a change, I’d like to see that change,” Cantlay said. “The format now I think is a little clunky. I think it’s a little strange,” Keegan Bradley said. “There’s no right or wrong way. They’re trying to create drama in the last event of the year, and you got guys like Scottie Scheffler who, you know, if they don’t do something like that, wouldn’t have to even play that week and you win the FedEx Cup. So I’m not in a position, thankfully, to make those (decisions), but I’m all for trying to make the Tour better.”
Added Malnati: “I’m hopeful that we can do away with the starting strokes thing because I hate that that’s part of the conversation every year. I think it’s important that we maintain a season-long element to it. If you played a Scottie Scheffler season, you shouldn’t get to the Tour Championship and start even with everyone else. I think there’s different ways that it could go but I don’t know what direction it’s going to go (yet).” The Tour’s television partners – CBS and NBC, which rotate coverage years of the FedEx Cup – are driving the discussion to make a change. When asked if there is specific data driving the change, Malnati said, “I think there’s data that says the numbers aren’t good in terms of viewership of the Tour Championship.” NBC, which broadcast the event in 2024, reportedly was displeased with the ratings for what is supposed to be one of the premiere events. [CBS will broadcast the three playoff events this season, just its second time doing so since the FedEx Cup’s inception in 2007.] Malnati declined to go into details on some of the ideas presented to the players because as a board member he’s not privy to share them publicly, but he noted that some were “Savannah Bananas-esque,” a reference to the minor league baseball team that is known for thinking outside the box with several fan-friendly innovations to make the game more fun and engaging, and described them as “just really weird.” “I haven’t heard really a great idea from the TV side,” he said. “I think there’s some player ideas that have evolved around it.” Malnati said the Tour was planning to communicate to the membership that it’s possible the Tour Championship format could change this season. “If we don’t get something good soon, it won’t,” Malnati said. Scott guessed that a decision for the 30-man Tour Championship, which is scheduled for Aug. 21-24 before college and pro football takes center stage, would have to be made in the next eight weeks. “If it’s a prestigious event, it should be treated with care,” Scott said. “I think it’s a possibility if the right format can be produced. I mean, what are we waiting for? If the right answer is found that checks the boxes from sponsors to television and the players, then let’s do that.” But Malnati conceded that may be easier said than done. “We want there to be a focus on who won the Tour Championship, not just who won the FedEx Cup. With FedEx as our biggest sponsor, that’s why it’s so complicated. How do you make it all about FedEx but still having a legitimate tournament that you call your Tour Championship?” There is growing support among some players that the Tour Championship should be a 72-hole stroke-play tournament held Wednesday through Saturday for triple the FedEx Cup points, which would declare a winner of the Tour Championship, with the top 8 advancing to a stroke-play shootout for the FedEx Cup title. “I like it. I do,” Scott said of the concept. “I think if you put a lot on the line on Sunday, it’s interesting. But that’s just me.” Malnati echoed that sentiment. “That would be great entertainment,” he said. “You can still have a legitimate tournament and yet you’d still have the potential gripe that the best player of the year doesn’t win the FedEx Cup but the 18-0 (New England) Patriots didn’t win the Super Bowl either.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: pga-tour-tour-championship-fed-ex-cup-format-changes
