PGA Tour in 'advanced talks' for huge changes at FedEx Cup finale
PGA Tour considers huge changes for its season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake, a tournament that determines the FedEx Cup champion.
The PGA Tour is reportedly in 'advanced talks' to introduce a bracket style format for its season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake, a tournament that determines the FedEx Cup champion.
This latest update to come out of the PGA Tour has been provided by the New York Times.
Current discussions on the PGA Tour table include proposals for both stroke play and match play options at the Tour Championship.
Many critics of the current Tour Championship format consider the FedEx Cup can only be won by a handful of players starting the week.
They are right, too.
That's because the leader of the FedEx Cup standings heading to East Lake starts at 10-under par.
Second place starts at 8-under par, third on 7-under par, fourth on 6-under par and fifth on 5-under par.
The next five players in the 30-man field start at 4-under par, with the next five after that at 3-under par until you progress down to level par for the final five on the list.
Then again, nobody could possibly have denied runaway World No.1 Scottie Scheffler winning his first FedEx Cup in 2024 no matter what format you decided to play.
Scheffler started the week at 10-under par and he duly went on to secure a comfortable four-shot victory over Collin Morikawa on 30-under par.
The red-hot American went on to win seven official titles on the PGA Tour last season, highlighted with a second Masters title in three years.
He also won the Olympics and defended Tiger Woods' Hero World Challenge at the end of the year to make it nine wins in 2024.
You could argue by changing the current format to one where a player has been so dominant all season only to then get knocked out in the first round of match play at the Tour Championship would be somewhat unfair.
That is very much a reason why the WGC-Match Play has been canned by the PGA Tour because they are fed up of some of the biggest names getting booted out of the tournament before the weekend, where sponsors crave the big names still being around since they are paying big bucks.
Golf fans love a bit of match play though and the current FedEx Cup format does seem to carry more negativity around it than positivity with both fans and players alike.
TV figures at the Tour Championship would indicate the current format is something of a turn-off with fans.
The PGA Tour also keeps banging the drum about wanting to provide its fans with greater entertainment, and so changes could be imminent where the Tour Championship is concerned.
The New York Times claims a match play, stroke play format to the Tour Championship could commence as early as the 2025 season.
Should the PGA Tour add an element of match play to the Tour Championship then it would follow the script set by LIV Golf who use a match play format in their own season-ending Team Championship.
The 2025 Tour Championship is scheduled to take place at East Lake from 21-24 August.
That's a full month before the 2025 Ryder Cup, which takes place at Bethpage Black from 26-28 September.
Related:
The PGA Tour will welcome its brand new TGL in partnership with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy next week.
TGL is an indoor tech-infused golf league that will see 24 PGA Tour players compete in six different teams at the SoFi Center.
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