While it’s hard to find anything in sports that is unanimously agreed upon, it appears that that is indeed the case when it comes to the PGA Tour’s recent decision to bring the traditional stroke-play format back to the Tour Championship.
Since 2019, the Tour Championship had used a starting strokes model, which gave golfers who finished higher in the FedEx Cup standings a negative strokes advantage entering the first round of the tournament. Moving forward, the Tour Championship will be played as a 72-hole event where all players will start at even par with the week’s best performer being crowned the winner of the prestigious FedEx Cup.
“I didn’t love the previous format of starting strokes, and I really like the direction where we’re going,” Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 ranked player and reigning FedEx Cup champion, said on Wednesday ahead of this week’s Memorial Tournament. “I think the Tour Championship’s going to be difficult to qualify for. Making the Tour Championship is truly going to be the results from a great body of work over the course of a season, and then you have an opportunity to win the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup.”
As Scheffler alluded to, the decision to go back to stroke-play will level the playing field for the 30-person field who generated enough points to play in the championship. While the new format gives players like Scheffler less of an advantage, it will ensure that the winner of the FedEx Cup (and the $25 million cash prize) will be determined by what happens during the four-day Tour Championship.
“I think players are starting to just realize how much harder it is to get to the Tour Championship than maybe any of us realized,” said 2017 FedEx Cup winner Justin Thomas. “To where I think we’re fully understanding and grasping that, if you’re at the Tour Championship and you’re at that final event, then you have all the right in the world to walk away with the FedExCup. So I think that’s something I know that I’m behind and I think a lot of people are.”
Last year, as the top-ranked player in the FedEx Cup standings, Scheffler opened the Tour Championship at 10 under. Scheffler went onto win his first FedEx Cup title by four shots over Colin Morikawa, who started the tournament at 4 under.
“I think when I’ve started at roughly even par or 1 under you’re like, ‘Man, I just got to ball out. Like, I got to go crazy,'” Morikawa said on Wednesday. “Hopefully I have four insane days and we’ll see. But now, like every other sport, you have a chance to win essentially your championship.”
Along with creating a level playing field (and thus likely leading to a more competitive tournament), the format change should benefit the Tour Championship from a viewership standpoint.
“I think it will be easier to follow for fans now that everyone is starting at level,” said Xander Schauffele, who won his first two career majors last year and is still in pursuit of his first FedEx Cup title. “And, shoot, if you make it in as 30th — I made it in as 27th before, you really have a nice look at trying to win this thing.”