ATLANTA – Unlike many PGA Tour golfers, Masters champion Rory McIlroy has not averse to the format of the start stroke used in the Tour Championships in the past six seasons.
In the format introduced in 2019, the leaders of FedEx Cup Points launched the season-end event with at least two strokes of 10 under, compared to everyone else on the field. The second-placed players in points started in third place with 8 under and 7 under and fourth place with 6 under.
Even Scotty Scheffler, the world No. 1, who captured the first FedEx Cup in 2024 under the age of 10, was called the playoff format “Silly.”
This year, all 30 golfers on the field at East Lake Golf Club will start evenly in the traditional 72-hole tournament.
“I might be part of the minority,” McIlroy said Tuesday. “I never disliked the starting stroke, and I thought the best player of the season should be coming here.
Like this season, Schaeffler won his fifth BMW Championship last week, winning the third and fourth majors in the PGA Championship and Open.
“We can also debate whether Scotty is starting his stroke this week and a two-shot lead. Perhaps it’s not enough considering what he’s done this year and the lead he’s coming into this week at the FedEx Cup,” he said.
The PGA Tour redistributed the bonus pool and rewarded golfers who worked well in the regular season. Schaeffler has already collected $23 million in bonuses this year, including $10 million in pre-playoff points standings, $8 million from the Comcast Business Tour top 10 and $5 million leading points after the BMW Championship.
The Eastlake line has another $40 million this week. This includes $10 million for the winner.
Schaeffler tries to become the first back-to-back winner of the FedEx Cup.
“I’m sure everyone except Scotty Schaeffler loves the fact that we all start with equal arenas,” said Tommy Fleetwood of England. “It’s probably more exciting for players to come here. I know that everyone in the field of levels knows they have a great week, win tournaments and clearly become incredibly happy here.”
When the PGA Tour announced the changes in May, Schaeffler said the tour championship was to make it “the most difficult tournament of qualifying” and the “the most difficult victory” of the FedEx Cup trophy.
2017 FedEx Cup champion Justin Thomas said eliminating the starting stroke will give more golfers a chance to win on the field.
“There’s a chance that it’s an incredible week in that sense (it) you might have 15, 20 guys who have a chance to win on Sunday, and this is pretty cool,” Thomas said. “It’s great, but you just play the tournament, and I think in the starting stroke it was very dependent on where you were.
“In many cases, other than just a handful of guys, your week was decided very quickly, not the first nine holes, not the first day.
On the PGA Tour, this season’s tour championship was described as “bridge year.” This means that additional changes may occur soon. This tour explored the idea of spinning tournaments on other golf courses and the match play bracket that determines the champions during the season.
“There were so many other things at the table,” McIlroy said. “Matchplay is on the table and it’s been canned this year. It might come back to conversations for the next year or the following year. I think it’s difficult to adjust players to play stroke play every week, but the end of the season tournament will be determined by matchplay.
