Question of the week [Aug. 4-11]: What do you think of an idea where the PGA Tour does not end the FedEx Cup Playoffs with the Tour Championship, but a revamped Players Championship? And either eliminating the Tour Championship or changing its format and dates?
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At this time I would leave the playoffs and Tour Championship as is. The increased points (and money) created by the relatively new signature events has been effective in keeping the Tour’s future intact. FedEx’s investment would be foolish to disrupt without their support.
In my opinion, the attention should be given to the smaller tournaments that are struggling with sponsors, marquee players, course attendance and television ratings. This is the tour’s biggest short-term challenge and I hope the new CEO can turn it around.
Like other sports, fans love to complain about golf, but TV ratings are climbing back and the thought of going up against the NFL and college football broadcasts and taxing network production assets with Tour playoffs would yield smaller TV revenues. So, I am presuming that any radical date changes to the season are currently out of the question.
Steve Moore
Birmingham, Alabama
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What is the FedEx Cup? If the winner is the champion of the season and it's not Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy this year, then it's just an empty title. If someone gets in the top 30 without a win and wins the Tour Championship, then are they really the tour’s champion for the season? Of course not, so why do they play it at all? Sadly, for the money, I guess. Scheffler should have been declared Tour champion after the last regular-season tournament.
Art Williams
Luzerne, Pennsylvania
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Running the major portion of the PGA Tour season from January to September has been good for golf. Bringing back the silly season where the lesser-ranked players mostly compete for playing privileges the following year adds to interest in the fall season and it gives the top-ranked players some time off.
As for the FedEx Cup, ending it just before football season was a good decision as well. Ending the 10-under-par score for the points leader heading into the Tour Championship was also a good idea —it never seemed appropriate for the golf tournament itself.
Hopefully the new points system, whatever it is to be, will be easy to understand and successful. As for the Tour Championship itself, it should go back to being a standalone tournament where the winner of the tournament and the FedEx Cup winner do not have to be the same person.
It worked for years until the PGA Tour wanted to copy NASCAR. The FedEx Cup winner should be for overall season performance, not just one tournament and the points system should be fairly adjusted for that effect.
That separates golf from other sports and still gives a chance for a Cinderella golfer to emerge at the end.
James Brock
Atlanta, Georgia
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Why not a 32-player match play tournament with 36 holes on Sunday?
I’d even go as far as saying modify Thursday, Friday and Saturday play, perhaps making it 12 holes those days and then 36 on Sunday to go from the final four to champion? (This way, the max number of holes is still 72 over four days).
They already get stupid money for final-season rankings, make them beat five opponents over four days!! Then they can vacation ‘til the season starts back up.
David Brooks
Boynton Beach, Florida
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Why not go back in time to the Tournament of Champions and have a 72-hole tournament that includes the current year's winners only? I'm tired of guys who haven't won since 2022 (Patrick Cantlay) or who haven't won since 2023 (Collin Morikawa) or who have never won on the PGA Tour (Tommy Fleetwood) playing for the championship. At least wild cards in other sports won games.
Charlie Jurgonis
Fairfax, Virginia
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The FedEx Cup is billed as a season-long race so that's what we make it, a season-long race ending with the Wyndham Champions. Since the top 100 is the new number, the top 100 points earners get paid FedEx bonus money. So, all season long, they are not just playing for their job, there's bonus money in the end.
Start the new season-ending playoffs with everyone starting even. Call it whatever you want. The Tour Championship sounds good, but the top100 play in the first tournament. If you feel the need to give the regular season top 10 a bye, then that's OK. Play 90 in the first tournament, and the top 50 plus the 10 who got the bye, play the second tournament. The top 30 make it to the final tournament of 30. Sorry, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, if you come in 31st in the second tournament, you're out. Even Patrick Mahomes doesn't make it to every Super Bowl, even if it seems like he does.
Then there is a 72-hole finale for the biggest pot of money. We're destined to have playoffs for the last spot in each of the first two tournaments, which will make for compelling TV. Imagine a six-for-one with all six teeing off together for the last spot.
No points and no carry-overs in the playoffs — it's all dog-eat-dog stroke play. If you skip an event, except for the top 10 with byes in the first round, you're out. Every player that doesn't make the cut to the next tournament in the playoffs gets a flat-fee token appearance fee for playing all 72 holes.
Let FedEx, Coca Cola, Southern Company, the Tour, and other tournament playoff sponsors decide on where the percentage of money goes between the regular season and playoffs. They are really already doing it.
We end up with a FedEx Cup champion, and a Tour Championship champion. Then you have to address something special for the six or so tournaments in the fall to give them more meaning.
Barry Duckworth
Knoxville,Tennessee
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I like the idea. Be creative and inject some excitement into the playoffs.
Rick Wright
McAllen, Texas
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The PGA Tour is seemingly blind to the obvious solution for the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Have the first two tournaments get the field down to 32 players. Then the tournament becomes what has been successful for 100 years — match play.
> Four rounds.
> 16 matches on Thursday; eight on Friday; two on Saturday.
> Final and consolation final on Sunday.
The World Golf Championships used a match play format with excellent success. The tournament could even expand to five days, having a play-in day with 16 matches to determine the last eight players in — with 24 players automatically in the field based on the previous tournaments.
Match play is fascinating, no single hole eliminates a player and the strongest golfer who is playing the best is often the victor.
Joel Dragelin
Raleigh, North Carolina
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In my opinion, the PGA Tour needs to stop thinking its sport is like team sports and needs to stop trying to have its own version of the World Series, Stanley Cup Playoffs or Super Bowl. It’s not a team sport. It’s stupid to try ending a season like how team sports’ seasons end.
NASCAR made the same mistake, in my opinion, and now its playoffs is just as incomprehensible to its fans as the FedEx Cup is to golf fans.
Embrace who you are, the PGA Tour. Not who you are not.
Andrew Turnbull
Guaynabo, Puerto Rico
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No to a revamped Players Championship. I like the season really kicking off in March with the Players, then a major a month through July. Five months in a row with a huge event per month is just about perfect.
I’d eliminate the Tour Championship as the culmination of the FedEx Cup playoffs ... because I’d scuttle the FedEx Cup playoffs altogether. Men’s professional golf is not amenable to playoffs the way other team sports are amenable to playoffs. Embrace what the Tour is and stop chasing what it’s not. Stop trying to fit the proverbial round peg into a square hole.
NASCAR screwed the pooch trying to have a playoff system. The PGA Tour has done the same with the demented, incomprehensible — to wit, look at how many times they’ve modified the playoffs, and it still makes no sense — FedEx Cup playoffs.
Andrew Turnbull
Guaynabo, Puerto Rico
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I think we saw the best players in the world, according to the FedEx point standings, throughout the regular season and they were rewarded handsomely for their efforts. By a slim margin I would agree with the results — the Scottie Scheffler had a bit better year than Rory McIlroy.
Why [is the FedEx Cup Playoffs] being played? If the 30th player happened to win, would we be calling him the Tour Champion player of the year? No, so we don't really need these three tournaments other than they will allow us a few more weeks of watching really good golf.
Art Williams
Luzerne, Pennsylvania
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As it stands now, I really don’t view this as a playoff, since some players can (and one did) skip the first round. If you want to make more interesting playoff format, I would suggest the following:
> The top 70 qualify for the playoffs, as they do now. However, the points reset to zero. The points you accumulate during the playoffs are the only ones that count toward the championship and allow you to advance.
> For the first playoff tournament (FedEx St. Jude), the field is reduced from 70 to 60 after the first 2 rounds; and, the top 50 after the final round advance to the second tournament (BMW Championship), also as they do now.
> For the second tournament, the top 40 advance after the second round; and, the top 30 advance to the final at East Lake, again, like they do now.
> For the final round at East Lake, the top 20 advance after the second round and the final 10 duke it out for the final two rounds and the championship. Only the top 10 share in the prize money.
If you don’t advance, you’re done, period. If you decide to skip a playoff tournament, you’re also done. Admittedly, there’s the chance that whoever was in first place at the end of the regular season could be eliminated after the second round of St. Jude Championship; however, this is still no different than the college football playoffs.
You might be the No. 1 seed, but if you lose in the first or second round, you go home. I think this would be more exciting and generate more interest and competition than the current playoff series.
Chuck Dunlap
Lexington, South Carolina
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The problem with they playoffs is that they're anticlimactic. The men's professional golf season — the part anyone cares about — ends with the last major of the year. And, these days, that comes in July. July! This owes, I suspect, to not wanting to be upstaged by the beginning of football season and also to the fact that they kept playing the PGA Championship on courses in the South in August. And, then, of course, they couldn't figure out how to make the playoffs interesting or how to structure them, so that the points leader got the post position when they started. They're all about money and not about golf. That's the real problem, and putting the Players Campionship at the end isn't going to solve that problem.
Tony Reid
Waterville, Maine
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I think the PGA Tour should quit being afraid of the NFL. Run the season into October, maybe with one or two weeks off. Then schedule tournaments either Wednesday thought Saturday or Thursday through Satursday with an old-fashion 36-hole final round. Make the last two tournaments either stroke or match play.
And if you want to reward the No. 1 guy from the regular season, give him one stroke.
Donn Rutkoff
Oceanside, California
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The Tour Championship with more changes? The only thing consistent with the Tour Championship is that the changes seem endless. It’s reminiscent of “CaddyShack 2” in taking a good formula and trying to make a better one — and failing.
The Tour Championship is has become just another golf exhibition, like LIV Golf or the PGA Tour Champions. Here's a wheelbarrow full of money, fellas. See you in January.
We can start playing real golf again after Labor Day.
Dave Curley
Las Vegas, Nevada
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Front: East Lake Golf Club's 18th hole during the 2022 Tour Championship.
Photo: Tommy Dickson | Golffile