Two weeks ago, Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world and the current leader of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, called the premise of the entire competition “silly.”
“You can’t call it a season-long race and have it come down to one tournament,” Scheffler said in Memphis, Tenn. “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.”
In Scheffler’s mind, the FedEx Cup playoffs instead identify “the guy that plays the best in these playoff events,” not the best player throughout the season. Take Keegan Bradley, the 50th and final player to make the BMW Championship, who then won in Denver on Sunday to shoot up to No. 4 in the standings. He’ll start this week’s tournament at 6-under-par, just four shots behind Scheffler. Bradley has a solid chance to win the $25 million bonus at the end of this week in Atlanta.
“I would use Keegan Bradley as a great example of what the playoffs are,” Scheffler said Tuesday. “You can have somebody who has had not their best year, and then all of a sudden he turns it into what could be his best year or one of his best years on tour.”
At its core, what Scheffler is describing is not a season-long competition. All reasonable points, right? Why are we calling this a season-long race if that’s just not what it is?
It’s more complicated than that. The bone that Scheffler is picking with the Tour Championship is exactly why the format was changed to the “starting strokes” model in 2019. In the tour’s eyes, by giving strokes to each player based on their place in the standings at the beginning of the Tour Championship, the FedEx Cup is balancing the responsibilities of being a season-long race and one that ends with one winner.
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The PGA Tour wanted the FedEx Cup to culminate with a single tournament and a single champion: The player who wins the Tour Championship also wins the FedEx Cup. It’s flashy. It’s (somewhat) easy to follow. The broadcast won’t need constant cuts to a dizzying graphic of the points system changing in real time. We can just watch a golf tournament that is simply just a golf tournament — but with $25 million on the line.
In its previous format, the Tour Championship effectively had two champions: the player who performed the best at East Lake, and the one who finished the points list on top. Most famously, this led to the scene in 2018 where fans swarmed Tiger Woods in the 18th fairway after he won the former, but Justin Rose won the latter.
Now, points freeze before the Tour Championship, and they turn into strokes: Scheffler is starting the week at 10 under, Xander Schauffele at 8 under, Hideki Matsuyama at 7 under, Bradley at 6 under and Ludvig Åberg at 5 under. Then Nos. 6-10 begin at 4 under. Nos. 11-15 are at 3 under; Nos. 16-20 at 2 under; No. 21-25 at 1 under and No. 26-30 at even par.
The FedEx sponsorship permeates the PGA Tour’s playoffs system. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
It’s still confusing. And Scheffler still isn’t into the whole thing. What does the FedEx Cup mean if it isn’t an accurate representation of what the PGA Tour calls it: a season-long race?
“I think we need a season-long race. I think the FedExCup has been really good for our tour and for the game. I think it’s something exciting to finish off the year,” Scheffler said. “Personally, I thought the old format, I didn’t have a ton of issues with. Personally, when I watched it I found it kind of interesting who was going to end up where, and I didn’t necessarily mind that the winner of the Tour Championship wasn’t the winner of the FedExCup. It provides a little less volatility, which is the negative.”
“In terms of the season-long race, I think, yeah, I would have deserved to win the season-long race with winning the amount of times I did and winning a playoff event, but at the end of the day then we get here and it would be like, well, the thing we worked all year to have a great finish on TV for is now over.”
Therein lies the problem: the importance of “the product.”
Scheffler gave a long, honest rant about the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup format Tuesday. Some of his answers were so long that Schauffele, next on the media schedule, had to wait his turn in the corner of the media tent for nearly 10 minutes, listening to Scheffler give his take. You can tell Scheffler has thought about this subject extensively. In doing so, the world No. 1 didn’t just identify the problem with the FedEx Cup playoffs. He pointed out exactly what is stalling the PGA Tour as an organization in general.
Scheffler’s recognition of why the Tour Championship doesn’t make sense — and his acceptance of that reason — is telling considering the state of the professional game. In the face of the LIV threat, the PGA Tour has been plagued with conflicting priorities tearing it in different directions. What do the players want? What do the fans want? What do the TV networks want? It doesn’t matter. None of it can happen without the sponsors — they keep the tour running, and they always win.
“Really, it comes down to the guys putting up the money for us to play with,” Scheffler said. “At the end of the day, we have sponsors for our tournaments, and they’re going to want it a certain way, and if FedEx putting up the kind of money they’re putting up at this event, we’re going to have to play it the way they want to play it. It’s just as simple as that.”
So despite sharing his opinion in recent weeks, Scheffler concluded his news conference by saying that going forward, he isn’t interested in sharing his opinion on this subject, at least in the public eye.
“All I can do is show up and compete and give my input where it’s necessary,” Scheffler said. “Sometimes sitting up here giving my input can get blown out of proportion.”
Scheffler knows where he can be valuable, and he knows where he can’t. That’s just where we are right now with the PGA Tour. And that says something.
(Top photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)