At this week's season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta, 30 players will battle it out at East Lake Golf Club to determine the FedEx Cup champion and the winner of an astounding $25 million first-place prize.
Every player who got to Atlanta gets $550,000 just for making it, but with a $24.45 million difference between first and last place this week, there's a lot on the line. However, the players don't start with equal footing in the Tour Championship. There's the pesky little matter of starting strokes.
When the FedEx Cup format changed in 2019, the PGA Tour decided to convert the FedEx Cup points standings after the BMW Championship into a pre-tournament leaderboard with a total against pare assigned to every player in the field. The top seed starts at 10 under par, while the second seed is at 8 under par. It goes down like that, eventually into clusters of five players until seed Nos. 26-30 start on even par -- effectively given a 10-shot deficit to begin the week and 72 holes to overcome it if they want to win the FedEx Cup.
Each year since the starting strokes concept was introduced, there's been a segment of fans who speak out about having what is deemed to be a net or handicap tournament to determine the FedEx Cup. There's a point to be had there, especially if you're of the belief that the FedEx Cup is designed to determine the PGA Tour champion for the season.
However, the starting strokes concept is a good one. It can work moving forward. What I'd like to suggest, though, is a serious tweak in how and when the starting strokes are used in the playoffs.
Before I get into my proposed changes, it's important to understand that the FedEx Cup is not determining the best player on the PGA Tour for any one season. Instead, it's a series designed to entertain fans just before football season, dole out a lot of cash and have the best players collectively compete three more times before golf season ends. If you view the FedEx Cup format through that prism, it's a lot easier to understand the value of starting strokes and to make changes.
Starting strokes were created to make it really easy for fans to understand who won the FedEx Cup after the last putt drops in Atlanta. The idea would mean no conversion to points, no dual champions, none of that. (Remember those days, Steve Sands?!) So why not extend that idea to the entirety of the playoffs? Make a clear delineation: the regular season is about points, and the playoffs are just about the strokes.
My proposal, then, is to start the playoffs with the starting strokes. Take all 70 players who qualify, and give them a starting position on the playoffs leaderboard.
- No. 1: -10
- No. 2: -8
- Nos. 3-10: -6
- Nos. 11-20: -5
- Nos. 21-30: -4
- Nos. 31-40: -3
- Nos. 41-50: -2
- Nos. 51-60: -1
- Nos. 61-70: E
Now, the playoffs begin from here with the FedEx St. Jude Championship. Play that 72-hole tournament, with the medalist (winner) getting a $3.6 million bonus. Combine those four-round totals against par each player's starting strokes, and then the top 50 players on the leaderboard advance to the BMW Championship. Do the same thing all over again, combining the starting strokes, the 72-hole total from Memphis and the 72-hole total from the BMW, and then the top 30 players on the leaderboard get to East Lake.
When the Tour Championship begins, the post-BMW leaderboard carries over, and the chase for the FedEx Cup starts from there.
Using a crude example from the 2024 season, here's how the leaderboard would look going into East Lake:
| POS | START | PLAYER | START | ST JUDE | BMW | TOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | Xander Schauffele | -8 | -15 | -8 | -31 |
| 2 | 29 | Sam Burns | -4 | -14 | -11 | -29 |
| 3 | 5 | Wyndham Clark | -6 | -12 | -5 | -23 |
| 4 | 46 | Adam Scott | -2 | -7 | -11 | -20 |
| 5 | 1 | Scottie Scheffler | -10 | -10 | 1 | -19 |
| 6 | 32 | Tommy Fleetwood | -3 | -8 | -8 | -19 |
| 7 | 23 | Billy Horschel | -4 | -10 | -4 | -18 |
| 8 | 39 | Keegan Bradley | -3 | -3 | -12 | -18 |
|
| ||||||
| 9 | 57 | Viktor Hovland | -1 | -15 | -2 | -18 |
| 10 | 6 | Ludvig Åberg | -6 | 0 | -11 | -17 |
| 11 | 3 | Rory McIlroy | -6 | -5 | -6 | -17 |
| 12 | 49 | Will Zalatoris | -2 | -9 | -5 | -16 |
| 13 | 45 | Denny McCarthy | -2 | -11 | -2 | -15 |
| 14 | 42 | Alex Noren | -2 | -5 | -7 | -14 |
| 15 | 12 | Byeong Hun An | -5 | -4 | -5 | -14 |
| 16 | 11 | Patrick Cantlay | -5 | -4 | -5 | -14 |
|
| ||||||
| 17 | 38 | Si Woo Kim | -3 | -3 | -8 | -14 |
| 18 | 44 | Cam Davis | -2 | -3 | -8 | -13 |
| 19 | 4 | Collin Morikawa | -6 | -6 | -1 | -13 |
| 20 | 16 | Matthieu Pavon | -5 | -9 | 1 | -13 |
| 21 | 14 | Tony Finau | -5 | -3 | -5 | -13 |
| 22 | 28 | Chris Kirk | -4 | -1 | -7 | -12 |
| 23 | 10 | Shane Lowry | -6 | -1 | -5 | -12 |
| 24 | 13 | Russell Henley | -5 | -2 | -4 | -11 |
| 25 | 18 | Sepp Straka | -5 | -1 | -5 | -11 |
| 26 | 27 | Taylor Pendrith | -4 | -2 | -5 | -11 |
| 27 | 15 | Akshay Bhatia | -5 | -9 | 5 | -9 |
| 28 | 20 | Brian Harman | -5 | -1 | -3 | -9 |
| 29 | 22 | Christiaan Bezuidenhout | -4 | -6 | 1 | -9 |
| 30 | 30 | Corey Conners | -4 | -1 | -4 | -9 |
| 31 | 25 | Aaron Rai | -4 | -8 | 4 | -8 |
| 32 | 35 | Max Homa | -3 | -6 | 1 | -8 |
| 33 | 7 | Sahith Theegala | -6 | -13 | 11 | -8 |
| 34 | 26 | Jason Day | -4 | -3 | 1 | -6 |
| 35 | 24 | Davis Thompson | -4 | -4 | 3 | -5 |
| 36 | 33 | Stephan Jaeger | -3 | -3 | 2 | -4 |
| 37 | 41 | Austin Eckroat | -2 | -7 | 7 | -2 |
| 38 | 54 | Eric Cole | -1 | -7 | 7 | -1 |
Xander Schauffele had an incredible regular season, and he was strong in both playoff events, so he has a two-shot lead over Sam Burns, so has been fabulous in both playoff events after a good regular season. Wyndham Clark won this year at Pebble and did well in Memphis, so he has an outside chance to win the FedEx Cup. Everyone else is happy to be there as far as the FedEx Cup goes.
In an effort to assuage the players who come into the Tour Championship with no chance to win the FedEx Cup, the Tour could create a bonus pool just for the Tour Championship 72-hole total. After all, that medalist earns Official World Golf Ranking points, which is really strange because the psychology of the tournament is completely different from the start. Then again, under the current system, at least half the field really has no shot to win the FedEx Cup anyhow.
Also note that 10 players who got to the BMW Championship under the points system wouldn't make it there under the starting strokes system, including Sungjae Im, Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick. The first playoff event would have dramatic impacts on the next stage and so on. In total, 11 of the top 30 players in these hypothetical standings were outside the top 30 to start the playoffs.
(Of course, there would have to be caveats. Namely, there would have to be a score assigned to a player who doesn't finish a tournament due to withdrawing or injury, as they can't just move onto the next stage. There is a convenience factor in points from that standpoint.)
Using this year as an example, the concept could reduce the Tour Championship to a mano-a-mano fight between two players. However, this system also changes the psychology of the playoffs. Every shot counts. There are no prior points earned to bail out a top player who loses their game at the wrong time. The worst seeds have a legitimate chance to win it all. The starting strokes reward aggressive, well-timed play, as well as an exciting, consistent setup between events that straddles the line between major-caliber and scoring-friendly.
If you want a playoff system, you have to be open to the possibility that the best player doesn't win, rather that that player who gets hot at the right time wins. For better or worse, that's true of every major American sport with a playoff system. The best regular-season team doesn't always win the post-season. And, yes, sometimes, the championship game is a dud, a mismatch or simply a crowning. It happens.
However, using a longer-tail system, the entirety of the playoffs is more meaningful, more dramatic and more compelling than the current one that largely is there to protect the best players and give them three final cracks at raking in an incredible amount of money.
